The Piper
by Una-Blythe
Summary: In this sequel to Rilla of Ingleside, thirty-six-year-old Una Meredith is forever changed when she receives an unexpected legacy. *Completed*
1. A Budget of Letters

Chapter One—A Budget of Letters

It was a breezy afternoon in late March in the village of Glen St. Mary's.  Outside, crocuses were just starting to poke their baby heads from the damp ground.  Shrieks of laughter rang out from Rainbow Valley, wafting up to Ingleside, for a new crop of Blythe (and blithe) youngsters had sprung up.                            

Inside, however, a fire was cheerily burning away in the kitchen, where three women toiled not nor spun.  It was teatime, a ritual they strictly adhered to, taking time to relax, visit, and read the mail.           

The youngest of the three was Young Mrs. Dr. Blythe—the Faith Meredith of days gone by.  Although traces of the harum-scarum child remained, twelve years of marriage to her beloved Jem had brought a sweet serenity to her face.    

Susan Baker looked much like she had at sixty, but the grey hair was white now, and she was no longer maid-of-all-work at Ingleside, but instead, a true part of the family which she had run for so many years.  Susan was growing old and feeble in body, but her mind and tongue were as sharp as they had ever been.     

Anne Blythe rounded out the trio.  Sorrows had mixed the red tresses with grey, but in many ways she remained the Anne of Green Gables who had come to the Island more than fifty years before.   Slowly, she sipped her tea, enjoying the warmth of the delicate cup in her hands.     

"Now then, where is Meredith?  She told me that this was _her_ day to bring in the mail, and that Matthew and Walter weren't to lay so much as a finger on it!" Faith smiled, smoothing her apron border with her hand.  Although Miss Cornelia (or, as Susan had always said, _Mrs._ Marshall Elliot,) had gone to the heavenly realms above, where it was assumed that there was a separate Presbyterian section just for her, her crocheted lace still remained on many aprons, pillowcases, and such ilk, including Faith's apron. 

The door banged, and a fair, rosy-cheeked girl of nine with bobbed golden hair burst in.            

"Mummy, Gran, Susan, here's all your letters.  Goodness, there's several!  Here's one from Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry down at Blair Water; let me know if Dianne sent me a note, will you?  Aunt Diana Wright for Gran, and Aunt Rilla and Uncle Ken."  This all said, Meredith headed out the door and back to Rainbow Valley, stopping only for a handful of monkey-face cookies.  Anne smiled.  Meredith was much like two other girls she had known once upon a time—one being herself, the other Faith, but very different from her brothers.  Walter belied Shakespeare's idea that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, for he was nothing like his uncle.  No flights of fancy for _him_—he was definitely Jem's son, adventuresome as all get out.  Matthew hearkened back to Matthew Cuthbert, quiet and shy, never wanting to be noticed.  Perhaps there _was_ more in a name than Shakespeare thought. 

"None from Shirley?" Susan asked concernedly.  "He doesn't write enough."    

"Well, Susan, he _is_ Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Redmond, and that keeps him pretty busy. Exam season is coming up, and he probably wants to make sure that his students are prepared," Faith tried to console her.  "And he's planning to be here for Easter vacation."          

"I hope so," said Susan. "He needs a good wife to keep him in order!"  Shirley was still her "little brown boy", even though he was thirty-four.  She worried that the food wasn't as good at Redmond, and sent him packages of food regularly.      

"Di and her husband also live in Kingsport, don't forget," Faith reassured her.  "They won't let him overwork himself."   

"I suppose," Susan said.  "Mrs. Dr. dear, since I must trust that dear boy to Providence, I would like to hear Nan's letter.  _She _seems to keep matters running smoothly in the Blair Water manse." 

"'Dear Mother and all,'" Anne read Nan's letter aloud, "'we trust that you are all doing well.  The church down here at Blair Water continues to do well, and Dianne, Blythe, and John are flourishing like weeds.  I recently completed a new quilt in the Irish Chain pattern.  Jerry isn't here this afternoon, since he has a funeral for one of his parishioners—a Miss Elizabeth Murray…" Anne trailed off as the door flung open again.           

"Meredith!" Faith said sharply, assuming that her daughter was the cause of the interruption.  However, that was not the case, for in the doorway stood a white-faced, black-haired woman gasping for breath.   

"Why, Una," Faith said to her sister worriedly, "whatever has happened?  You can hardly breathe!"       

"F-father…something's happened to him…his heart," Una blurted.  She leaned over a chair, her chest heaving with the effort to breathe.  "He was in his study…Rosemary sent me up to see what he wanted for supper…and he was slumped over in his chair…his face was _grey_, Faith!  Is Jem or Dr. Blythe in?"    

"No, Jem's at the Upper Glen on a burn case, and Father Blythe was gone to town for the day," Faith told her.  

Anne went to the telephone to ring up the Parker house, where Jem was. "Yes…yes, I know, but this is an emergency."  She talked in low tones for a few agonizing minutes.  "Go as quickly as you can, son."    

"He's headed right over, Una.  You stay right here and have a cup of tea to calm your nerves.  Faith, Jem says that Fannie Reese, his new nurse, had to be gone for the day, so he'll need your help," Anne told the worried women.         

"Well, Young Mrs. Dr. dear, I am no nurse, nor am I a doctor, but I can certainly pray—and that I will do," Susan offered firmly.   

"Do that, Susan," Una said softly.  "I think Father will need all the prayers he can get.  But surely the Lord knows best."

*********************

It was late that night when Jem and Faith made it back to Ingleside, heavy-hearted.  Una met them at the door, seeing their sad news in their faces before they even had a chance to speak. 

"He didn't make it, sister," Faith said.  "Rosemary had a chance to say goodbye, though.  She's taking it hard.  Jem left a sedative for her so she could sleep."      

Una's face was expressionless.  She could see that Faith had been crying, but something in her felt too strongly for tears.  She loved her siblings and her stepmother dearly, but John Meredith, dreamy and absent-minded at times, had always held a special place in her heart.  "We'll need to call Jerry and Nan, and Carl and Persis.  Do you want me to make the arrangements?" she asked her sister.  "I doubt that Rosemary will be up to it, and you have the children to take care of."

"Thank you so much," Faith replied gratefully, clutching her sister in a tight embrace.  "You've always been here when we need you, Una.  What would we do without you?"  Weary, she and Jem headed for bed.           

The guest room, with its apple leaf cotton-warp quilt made by Mrs. Lynde, and embroidered dresser scarf, was ready for Una, but she couldn't sleep. Death always brought back memories of the others she'd loved and lost—her mother, and Walter Blythe.  Una sat by the window long past three o'clock in the morning, watching the moon fade away and wondering what the next few days would bring.

**Author's Note:  This story is a work of fanfiction, and therefore I am not making money off of it.  With a very few exceptions, all of the characters in it belong to L. M. Montgomery.  If you'd care to review, I'd appreciate reading what you have to say.**


	2. The Cruelest Month

**Chapter Two—The Cruelest Month**

"April _is_ the cruelest month," thought Una drearily, as she woke to a rainy sky on the morning of her father's funeral.   "It seems right, though, that there's rain.  Somehow a blue, sunny sky would seem offensive."  She slipped into her new black dress, thinking it quite hideous.  Una hated black dresses.  Although not at all what one would call a creature of mirth, she also didn't think that life was meant to be lived gloomily.  Sadly, perhaps, but never gloomily.  It was better to suffer your hurts without letting the rest of the world know that you were hurting.     

There was _such_ a bustle of people all around.  Although Di and Philip hadn't been able to make it, everyone else in the Blythe-Meredith-Ford clan was there.   And Una was the only old maid in the lot.  For sure, Di hadn't gotten married until she was in her late twenties, but she had never lacked for beaus.  And what a romantic story it had been, her visit to Mrs. Blythe's old college chum Philippa, and falling in love with her handsome son.  

Una sighed. It was hard to know that she would always be Aunt Una to that pack of wonderful rapscallions overrunning Ingleside and the manse at the moment.  As much as she loved them, they weren't enough. Thinking of her nieces, she accidentally overheard them through the wall of the spare room.

"_I _think your mother's so pretty," Dianne Meredith told her cousin Cecilia, daughter of Carl and Persis.  "It's so nice to have nice-looking relatives.  It makes one feel more likely that one will look nice when one grows up.  Of course, one might also end up like Aunt Una."

"Why, what's wrong with Aunt Una?"  Trudy Ford asked.  Rilla was one of the few people Una counted as a close friend, although she lived in Toronto, and her five children loved Una to bits whenever they came to visit.  "She's not ugly at all…in fact, I think she's pretty, with her long black hair."

"Aunt Una's a duck of an aunt!" Meredith spoke up, tossing her bobbed golden head.  "She always has a full cooky-jar when we stop by at the manse."

"I'm not running down Aunt Una as an _aunt_," Dianne said slowly, as if she were speaking to an infant, "I'm merely saying that that's what she is, an aunt.  Mother says that Aunt Una never had a beau, and that's not how I want to be when _I _grow up."  She sniffed.

"Exactly," said Cecilia, who at eleven was the oldest of the quartet.  "_I'm_ going to marry a rich, handsome man and travel all over the world."

On the other side of the wall, Una brushed her hair furiously, trying to shut out the sound of childish voices.  They meant no harm, of course, although Dianne was something of a puss.  "I don't know if that's how a minister's child should be," she thought, "although we were never the stereotypical minister's children ourselves…"  Nan had always had a few extra airs and graces, though, and Dianne had inherited them, with plenty of her own besides.  Oh, well, only children and idiots tell the truth, and Una knew that there was plenty of truth in what was said…if only it didn't sting so much.

*********

The over-harbour cemetery was damp, and a mist blew in off the Harbour Head.  John Meredith's mourners stood close to each other, as if to gain both comfort and warmth.  Una found herself flanked by her stepmother Rosemary and her half-brother Bruce, who was home from his teaching job at Lowbridge.  

"I am the Resurrection and the Life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies…"  Una found it hard to listen to Jerry's eulogy and prayer, even though both were eloquent.  She was consumed with the thought of what was to come.  Norman and Ellen Douglas, Rosemary's sister, had offered Rosemary a home with them, since the manse was to be the home of the next minister.  Even though Rosemary and Norman had always sparred, Rosemary had told her the night before that she intended to go and live with them.

"Ellen's my only sister, and I hate to make you give up all your plans for me," Rosemary had said softly.  Una wondered bitterly what plans she had; after all, she had spent her entire life except for a three months' domestic science course in Kingsport living with her parents.  But Rosemary had meant it as a thoughtful gesture, and besides, Una couldn't see herself fitting into the Douglas household.  Norman Douglas was fine in small doses, but she thought he'd be somewhat tiresome to live with, with his rages and tempers.  

"Well, there, Una!  Your father wasn't bad, as parsons go.  Only he'd contradict himself every once in a while…he _did_, Ellen, so don't poke me," Norman said, vigorously shaking Una's hand.  Una realized with a jerk that she had missed the end of the service, and that the mourners were coming to condole with the bereaved.

"Your father was one of the few men one could talk to about politics," Ellen Douglas said.  "Do excuse Norman, nothing I've ever done has gotten through to him."

"Well, I do say you're looking very well, Una, all things considered," Mary Vance Douglas said, her pale eyes and hair as pale as ever.  "It's not everyone that can wear black, but at least it doesn't look as bad on you as it does on me.  When Kitty Alec died, I had to wear mourning, and did it ever wash me out!  I told Miller, 'I know she's your aunt and all, but three months is plenty.'  Now Cornelia, though, she was a cat of a different color.  I didn't mind wearing mourning so much for _her_.  They don't make her breed nowadays, though I see where Rilla named one of her girls for her.  I thought about it, but I've always favored showier names." Mary's children were named Violetta, Reginald, and Imogene, which no one could even begin to say were not showy.

_"Please, please, go away, Mary,"_ Una thought helplessly.  Mary's heart had always been in the right place, but she was sorely lacking in the knowledge of what to say and when.

"Well, I best be getting back home; I left Miller with the kids, but he doesn't rightly have the knack with them that I do.  Years ago, when I was with Mrs. Wiley, I could do most anything for the neighbor's young'uns.  They'd call me over when one got sick…"  Una let Mary's talk slide off her as she left.  The knot of mourners was beginning to disperse, but she stood there with Rosemary and her siblings until everyone else was gone and they were left with only the mist off of the Head, which was turning to rain.


	3. Easter Dinner

Chapter Three—Easter Dinner 

Easter dinner was a week later.  It was a sunny day, with no hint of the fog and rain that had come upon them earlier.  Una watched everyone with hungry eyes.  They all had their lives, loves, and little everyday happenings, while all she had was a boring past and an unseeable future.  Not that life had treated her poorly; rather, Una found herself blessed with the loving family she had.  But something inside of her wanted something more; what that something more was, she couldn't have told anyone, even herself. 

Una had volunteered to help Susan serve, which gave her an unfortunate opportunity to observe her family.  All the adults were seated at the long table, while the children were ensconced in the parlour.  Anne sat at the foot of the table, with Gilbert at the head.  His hair had gone grey over the years, and his hands weren't completely steady as he carved the meat, but Dr. Blythe was still the best physician in Glen St. Mary's, over-harbour, and the Harbour Head.

A close second to him as a doctor, seated at his right hand, was his son, Jem, Young Dr. Blythe.  Jem was a born surgeon, with his long, tapering fingers.  Faith sat next to him, the look of a completely happy woman on her face even in the midst of bereavement.  Walter, Matt, and Meredith were enjoying this chance to see all of their cousins, especially because they were the only set of clan youngsters in the Glen.  Una looked at Faith, her thoughts torn between envy of Faith and horror at herself for thinking such a thought.  Faith had lost a father just as she had, but Una thought that it might make a difference to have "someone"—she couldn't even use the term "husband" without blushing, to comfort you.

Nan was to Faith's right, with Jerry beside her.  Nan, thought Una, although a worthy woman whose children would certainly rise up and call her blessed, wasn't quite of the race that knew Joseph.  She was more Martha than Mary, always making sure that everything was just right. There was a hint of merriment in Una's eyes as she poured Jerry another glass of water—no one had _ever_ thought of him as a minister before the War.  But he had come back with a true desire to teach others about God, and his experiences in the War had given him an understanding of suffering that let him truly relate to his congregation.  Their oldest child was nine-year-old Dianne, who was her mother in miniature, lacking, however, the fancies that her mother had loved as a child.  _That_ trait showed up in Blythe, a pixie of seven years with a turned up nose, freckles, and brown braids.  John, the youngest at six, was a placid youngster…Una couldn't think of any distinguishing characteristics he had.  Although they weren't her favorite nieces and nephew, Una loved them fiercely, for after all, the children of the barren were more than the children of the married; she had all the clan's children to love.

Ken and Rilla sat across from Jem and Faith.  They were still so much in love with each other it made Una's heart hurt to watch them, their fond looks and hand squeezes that said, "I love you".  It really _was_ amusing, thought Una, that Rilla, the one who had always abhorred babies, should have the largest family in the clan.  Running down like stair steps were Gilbert, age eleven; Gertrude, or Trudy, age nine; seven-year-old Willis; Cornelia Susan at five; and a little plump-cheeked darling, three-year-old Owen.  Una figured that Rilla Ford was the only person who had ever suspected her love for Walter Blythe, but Rilla had entirely too much discretion to ever mention it.  

Carl and Persis Meredith sat next to Ken and Rilla.  They lived in Toronto, but traveled all over the world so Carl could collect his "slimy bugs", as his daughter Cecilia called them.  Carl was a good-natured sort, and Persis was a dear—a bit proud at times, but a dear.  _"And with looks like that,"_ thought Una, _"I might be tempted to be a bit prideful as well!"_

Rosemary and Bruce weren't there, as they had gone with Ellen and Norman.  _"I suppose that all of them should have been here as well,"_ Una continued in her mental conversation with herself, _"but for the life of me I'm not sure where we would have put them.  They'll be over later, though."_

The last of the clan present was Shirley Blythe, quiet as always.  Shirley was doing great things in the mathematical world, his fellow faculty members at Redmond said, but in Glen St. Mary eyes, he was the prime example of what happened when you had more education than was good for you.  Always rumpled looking, as if he needed to be pressed and brushed, Shirley had never shown any interest in the Glen girls.  The War had put an even quieter expression on Shirley's face, as if he'd realized that flying aeroplanes wasn't all he'd hoped it would be.  As Una leaned in to collect his plate, he handed it to her, their fingers barely brushing against each other.  A strange sensation hovered in Una's mind, compounded by the wisp of expression she saw on Shirley's face.  It wasn't a look she'd ever seen on his face before, and she didn't know how to read it.  Then, as soon as she thought she'd seen it, it was gone.

****************

 "So what are you going to do now, Una?" asked Nan.  They were doing up the dishes, with Una washing, Nan drying, and Faith putting away.  Rilla was watching the children out in the parlour, while Persis was curled up in the big comfy chair in the kitchen corner.

"I really don't know.  Bruce will be teaching, and Rosemary is going to live with Ellen and Norman," Una replied.  Why, oh, why, had Nan thought of bringing this up now?  She had no idea of what she was going to do, but she didn't want the whole kit and caboodle of them to know that yet.

"Well, you could always have a home with us, I'm sure," Nan told her.  "I can't get any good hired girls, and I'd much rather have you, anyway.  You're such a good housekeeper."

Seething, Una decided to bite her tongue.  She loved Nan and Jerry, but a lifetime with them would be something else altogether. Nan saw this as a practical solution—a home for Una and free, reliable household help.   And the children really _were_ somewhat of a handful.

"You know that Ingleside would be available as well, if you didn't want to leave the Glen," Faith said comfortingly, placing the blue and brown mixing bowl on the third shelf.  "After all, we've lived here for years.  You know everyone."

"Actually, I don't want to make up my mind yet," Una told them.  "Thank you both, but I just want to wait a few more days before I consider what I'm going to do."

"And then there's the reading of Father Meredith's will," Persis said.  "I'd wait for that before I did anything.  Who knows?  You might become rich!"

"Somehow, I doubt that," Nan said sarcastically.  "A village minister never has enough money to survive on, let alone any to leave to his progeny.  I speak from experience!"

"Well, all I know is that I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't have to know yet," Una said softly but firmly, finishing up the last pan.  She wiped off the stove with her dishcloth, hung her blue-flowered apron up, and stepped to the door.  "I need some time to myself," she told her sister and sister-in-laws.  "I think I'll head down to Rainbow Valley and sit a spell."


	4. “A Violet by a Mossy Stone”

**Chapter Four—"A Violet by a Mossy Stone"**

The morning mists and drizzles had cleared away by midafternoon, and Rainbow Valley was indeed living up to its name.  A beautiful rainbow arched over the end of the valley, and the grass was a fresh, crisp green.  Tiny purple and yellow violets carpeted the hollow.  Una sat beneath the Tree Lovers, their bells still chiming out as the "horns of Elfland faintly blowing".  What was there to do?  She had no real education or money.  The only thing that she had ever done was keep house for her father and Rosemary.  All that was within her rebelled at the thought of living with either Nan and Jerry or Jem and Faith.  It wasn't that she didn't love them, but that wasn't how she wanted to spend her life.

"I've 'kept faith'," she whispered, quoting Walter's last letter to Rilla.  "Yes, I have…but how much longer?"  

Una sat there for a while, pondering her state.  She was so engrossed in her troubles that she didn't even notice Shirley Blythe come up until he dropped down beside her on the grass.

"'A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden by the eye'," he quoted quietly.

"Oh!  You startled me!" Una said, gasping.

"Oh, dear…I knew that I wasn't the most handsome man alive, but I didn't realize that I was quite that unpleasant," Shirley said, his brown eyes twinkling.

"I didn't mean _that_," Una said, blushing.  "You were just so…so…unexpected."

"So I gathered," Shirley said dryly.  "What seems to be the problem?  You shouldn't be so solemn, Una."

"You're one to talk, Shirley Blythe," retorted Una; with the first bit of spirit she'd shown in weeks.  "You're quiet yourself!"

"I suppose so.  There _are_ worse things."  This in an even dryer tone, then becoming tender.  "What's wrong, Una?  Your father's death?  I'm here to help."

Una wondered if she should tell Shirley what was bothering her.  She had always borne her troubles alone.  But looking in his kind face, she knew that she could trust him.  After all, they had been friends for years. 

"Oh, I suppose it all goes back to that…it's more what I'm going to do now.  I could have a home with different ones of the family, but I don't want that.  I can't teach, and I don't want to keep house for people. In short, I don't know what to do with myself."

"I've been wanting to talk to you about that," Shirley said softly.  He hesitated, as if he wasn't sure whether or not to say the next thing on his mind.  "Una, you and I have known each other since we were children.  We grew up together, you might say." 

"Yes," said Una, not sure what turn the conversation was taking.

"You've become very…dear, I'd say, to me over that time," Shirley said, his tongue tripping over the words, like they were hard for him to admit.  "I realize that your father just died, and it's too soon, but I'd been going to talk to you anyway."

"Shirley Blythe, what on earth are you saying?" Una asked confusedly.

"I suppose I've blundered this in the most horrid way possible, but I've never had the gift of words that most of the clan has.  Una, I'm asking you to marry me."

**Author's Note:  Shirley's quotation is taken from Wordsworth's "She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways," a poem which reminds me very strongly of Una.  Thanks so much for all of your comments…I have quite a bit of this story written, and I hope to get it up soon.**


	5. Love Like Mathematics

**Chapter Five—Love Like Mathematics**

"What?" asked Una, in shock.  What was Shirley talking about?  Was he saying this merely because he felt sorry for her, or did he have deeper feelings?  Some of her emotions must have showed on her face, because Shirley took her hand and tried to explain.

"I have most definitely blundered this, haven't I?"  He grinned ruefully.  "I know it seems unexpected, but I've been considering it for quite some time, ever since last summer.  You were always there in the background, and I didn't realize how much you were a part of my life until I went back to Redmond.  I thought about writing to you, but I wanted to make up my mind that this was a good idea before I jumped in headfirst.  I'm used to being a bachelor…bit of a switch, you might say."

"Yes, that would be quite a switch," Una said dully.  It was a completely inane thing to say, she knew, but she couldn't come up with anything better.  Shirley Blythe had always been at the fringes of her life…a comforting presence, to be sure, but never one that had had any effect on her—unlike Walter.

"Don't worry; I know you aren't in love with me.   I don't really expect you to be," Shirley said gently.  Una went tense…how could he know of her feelings for Walter?  But that wasn't what he meant. "I guess I can't even say for sure that I'm in love with you.  I care about you, and I love you, but I have a feeling that that's different than being_ in_ love with you.  But I'm willing to give it a chance, if you are."  He kept going, but Una shut her eyes and tried to process what was going on.  Shirley was a dear, but did he really have to go at this like it was a mathematical problem?  He was right, though:  loving someone was different than being in love, but one often grew out of another.  He probably just felt sorry for her—on her own, no resources, an old maid.

"I hope I'm not giving you the wrong impression, Una," Shirley told her.  "I do care about you a lot…but I want you to know that it's not a _grande passion_.  However, it's not because I feel sorry for you either, as I can see in your face that that's what you're thinking.  I think we suit each other; we're both quiet-natured, seem to have some of the same interests, belong to the same clan."

Una gave a faint smile.  "If this keeps up, we'll be like the Dark and Penhallow clans over at Bay Silver and Rose River.  You know how it is:  there's no one for a Dark to marry but a Penhallow…"

"…and no one for a Penhallow to marry but a Dark!" Shirley finished the saying, smiling.  "I don't know if the Blythes, Merediths, and Fords are quite that bad, but we're getting there.  I suppose we could help things along, if we wanted."  The last part was said questioningly, as if waiting for an answer.

"Oh, Shirley, I don't know.  So much has changed so fast, and anyway with my father just dying, it wouldn't be seemly.  I don't want you to think that I'm rejecting you, because I'm not.  But give me time."

"As much of it as you want, dear.  I'm a patient man," Shirley said softly.  He leaned over, and suddenly Una knew that she was going to be kissed.  Her thoughts flew back to a far-off day, the only other time that she had been kissed.  Walter Blythe had been going off to war, and had given her a brotherly kiss before he left.  Just a brotherly kiss, nothing more, Una knew.  But she still moved her head slightly, causing Shirley's kiss to land on her nose.  They both laughed somewhat nervously.

"I'm sorry…I don't know what came over me," Una said.

"It's all right; I understand."  Shirley got up from their log, stretched, and headed back up the hill to Ingleside.  He turned and added, "I'm heading back to Kingsport on Tuesday, but I don't expect you to give me an answer by then.  Just whenever you decide, I'm ready."


	6. An Unexpected Legacy

**Chapter Six—An Unexpected Legacy**

There was an almost reverent hush over the Ingleside parlour as the lawyer prepared to read John Meredith's will.  It was not, thought Una, that anyone was expecting to gain anything of monetary value from it; rather, it was one last link with the man they had loved and respected so.  

It had been generally agreed upon in the clan that Rosemary was doing wonderfully, all things considered.  She sat between Una and Bruce, her taffy-coloured hair that was only beginning to grey contrasting sharply with her black poplin dress.  The sweet smile that had won her stepchildren's hearts was still on her face, but the wisdom that comes from sorrow flickered over it.

The lawyer, Mr. Richmond, who was a fat little man with an annoying habit of cracking his knuckles, began to read.   "I, John Knox Meredith, being of sound mind, do hereby write my last will and testament on the twentieth day of February in the year 1932.

"To my dear wife Rosemary…"

Nan fidgeted inwardly.  Mr. Richmond's voice was extremely nasally, and it was annoying her greatly.  As if sensing her frustration, Jerry gently laid his hand over hers.  Nan knew she was blessed to have so wonderful a husband.  Even though she worried and fretted over everything, he just kept telling her, "It'll come out right, Nan."  Like with Una—it wasn't that she wanted to take advantage of her loss, but Una needed a home and she could always use the extra help with her three youngsters.  But Jerry told her not to concern herself just yet—who knew what Una was going to do, and anyway it was not her business.

"To my son Gerald Meredith, I leave my library of theological books, knowing that he will find great treasures within their pages…"

_What a wonderful gift_, Jerry thought._  Father always knew what was right at the right time—like our Heavenly Father._

"To my son Carl and his wife Persis, the willowware that was his mother's…"

Persis didn't know quite what to think about that.  She didn't actually know of anyone who used willowware anymore…it was out-of-date.  But Carl had always told her how much he loved those dishes, so no matter the current fashion, there would be a place for them in their Toronto house, where she lived as the wife of a prominent Canadian scientist.  _However, my mother came from this shore…and left it for love.  If Carl wanted to live here, I'd live here…for love._

The will went as most wills do…Rosemary was provided for, the family treasures were distributed between the siblings.  Una had inherited her mother's wedding dress. She remembered how, as a lonely child, she would creep into the spare room, and bury herself in its grey silken folds.  _I wonder if I'll ever have occasion to wear it…perhaps someday, with Shirley?_  The thought seemed almost incongruous, but who knew what would happen?  Already, her life had changed more in a little over a week than she had ever dreamed.

"Reverend Meredith's regular will ends here, but there is a codicil at the end dated two weeks following," Mr. Richmond said.  He wanted to head back to Lowbridge, back to his wife's sausages and potatoes.  After all, this had been a somewhat dull will.  And they all seemed content with what they'd received…no disagreements or anything, although that one woman hadn't seemed particularly excited about those dishes.  She was a beauty, that Persis—hadn't her mother come from the Glen?  Some old scandal was there…maybe she'd been separated from her husband.  Well, he didn't know, and he was ready to go home, see his family.

"Also, to my daughter, Una Meredith, I leave the sum of one thousand dollars.  The rest of the family has other means of support, but she will be alone in the world, to a certain extent.  However, this money is not to be used for the day-to-day business of living.  In order for her to utilize it, it must be used for a trip to Europe.  You have worked hard all of your life without much to show for it, my daughter.  This is your reward."  

Mr. Richmond wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.  This had certainly livened things up.  They were all whispering to each other.  Funny, they didn't seem to begrudge her the money.  Now, if it had been his family, that would have been a different story.  Which one was Una, anyway?  She must be the dark-haired one, the quiet one who had tucked herself away into the back corner.  She looked awful white…

Una, for the second time in her life, had fainted.


	7. "I Will Be Me"

**Chapter Seven—"I Will Be Me"**

"Blue, I think," said Persis decidedly.  "That navy blue, in a tailored suit—no fuss or furbelows, but maybe a row of tucks down the blouse.  That should be white, I think…"  She cocked her head at Una, looking at her from all angles.  Una felt like she was a statue on exhibit to a museum, but ever since she had received the trip to Europe, her sister-in-laws had taken over all aspects of getting her ready for her trip.  

"I'm not sure," Faith said.  She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, as if this was the most important decision she would be making all year.  "The traveling suit should be blue, you're right, but I would make the blouse white with navy polka-dots and no tucks."

"I think the white would look more elegant."

"I think the polka-dot would be more suitable, less 'fussy'."  Faith quoted Persis's word back to her.

"Why not make both blouses?" asked Nan.  "You wouldn't want to always be doing laundry.  Besides, who wants to look the same all of the time?"

Una gave her a grateful smile.  "I like that idea."  

"She _wouldn't _look the same all of the time, anyway," Persis said.  "We're going to make sure Una has all the clothes she needs.  This is a big trip, after all.  I remember when Carl and I went…"

_Not a statue, a doll_, Una thought wryly.  She knew she shouldn't complain—after all, everyone had been so kind.  For starters, there had been no resentment about her inheritance.

"I wish we'd thought of it before, sister," Jerry had said.  "You've been working too hard for all of us.  Take a vacation—you've earned it ten times over."

And everyone had been so generous in their presents.  Una had tried to dissuade them; she had plenty of money to buy her own traveling articles with.  But the clan wouldn't hear of it.  Carl and Persis had given her a trunk with all sorts of assorted hatboxes and bandboxes, and Persis had insisted on helping pick out her wardrobe.  Jem and Faith had gotten her a new coat, with the dinkiest little blue hat to match.  Rilla and Ken had found a journal for her to keep a record of her travels in—it was burgundy leather, and Una thought she'd never had anything so elegant.  Nan and Jerry, although strapped by a minister's income, had given her an ivory brush and comb set with her initials monogrammed on the back.  _"No one's ever had such fine things,"_ thought Una.  _"I must be the luckiest woman on the Island."_

Shirley had written her a long letter when he'd heard about her trip.  Una thought about it as Nan pinned up her skirt hem.

"What can I give you as a going-away gift?" he'd written.  "If it was up to me, maybe something small, like a handkerchief or a handbag…or maybe a piece of jewelry, such as a ring.  Yes, a ring would be just about right.  What do you think?  Diamond?  Pearl?  To me, that sounds like a good sort of going-away gift.  But I feel that maybe that would be in poor taste at this time…so any time you want your gift, just send me a note and I'll make sure it arrives on the next train from Kingsport.  I'll even personally deliver it to you."  Una smiled.  For someone who was always so serious, Shirley had a streak of humor and romance in him that she never would have suspected.  If only she was sure that they were right for each other…

The letter had continued, "I think it's wonderful that you have this opportunity.  I hope you enjoy your tour there more than I enjoyed mine—the middle of a war may not be the best time to sightsee.  But twelve, thirteen years should have improved it slightly.  I won't ask you to make any commitment while you're there—but use this time to consider my proposal." And he was ever hers, Shirley Blythe.

This was certainly going to be quite the trip.  Una had originally planned just to go to England and wander all over the countryside for a couple of weeks, but her family wouldn't hear of it.  "After all," Nan had said, "this may be the only chance you have.  Make the most of it." So Una was going to travel the Continent—Germany, Spain, Italy…everywhere possible.  Except France.  Even though it was the home to many historic sites, Una had decided to spend as little time there as she could.  Walter Blythe's memory would haunt her from the moment she stepped on French soil, and that part of her life was over.  She had a beau, a wonderful family, and a trip to Europe.  Why spend any of it regretting a lost love? 

******************

As Una stepped off the train in Charlottetown, she was struck by how gloomy a day it was for a Prince Edward Island June.  It wasn't exactly raining, but it was too close to it to really say it was much of anything else.  

It was interesting to watch all of the people in the station, to wonder about their lives and where they were going.  That old woman with the striped shawl, now…did she have a son who she was going to live with?  And that tall girl with the russet hair and the look born of tiredness and uncertainty being pounced on by a pretty lady of about forty-five or fifty with smooth ripples of auburn hair who seemed to be her aunt…what was her worry?

She had been "seen off" by the Glen St. Mary family with all the hoopla such an occasion demanded.  Meredith and Matthew had wanted to bring out the old brass gong to ring, but luckily Faith had vetoed that idea.

A window seat on the train was available, and Una watched the Island countryside pass by her as she traveled to the Cape Tormentine ferry.  From there she would spend a night in Halifax with Rev. Jonas and Philippa Blake, Di's in-laws and Mrs. Blythe's old college chum.  Then she would take the train to Boston and board the _Victoria_, which would take her to England.  A sense of unreality pervaded her excitement.  Was this really happening to her, Una Meredith of Glen St. Mary's, the thirty-six year old old maid of the clan?  It couldn't be…but it was!  She pinched herself to make sure it was true, and sure enough, the pain was real.

"This will be my chance to truly find out who I am, without the rest of the clan around.  I won't stay in the background unless I want to," Una thought. "I will go and do things I've never had the opportunity to do.  I will be me…and truly find out who that is.  Then, maybe I can make up my mind about Shirley."


	8. Enter the Redferns

**Chapter Eight—Enter the Redferns**

The _Victoria_ was quite the ship, Una thought.  Her stateroom was the most luxurious room she had ever slept in, with pink satin sheets and little lace pillows.  How much Rilla would have loved to see all of this—but then, she probably had when she and Ken had gone to Europe.  

"Suppose I should stretch out my lazy bones and go to breakfast," she thought to herself.  "No sense in lying abed all morning, even if I _am_ supposed to be a lady of leisure."  Going over to the armoire, she took out one of her favorite new dresses.  It was a soft blue with small white flowers sprinkled over it, which set off her dark hair and blue eyes.

The dining salon was fairly empty, but Una didn't mind.  She really hadn't gotten to know any of the other passengers very well in the three days she'd been on board, but after years of always having her family around, the solitude was nice.  "However, if I did meet anyone, I'd hope it would be that couple I saw last night.  They seemed so much in love, like they'd never had a care in the world.  Someone said that he's a writer, or something…he looks more like an explorer."

"Who are you?" a little voice asked.  Una looked down to see a little tawny-haired girl with slanting dark eyes looking up at her curiously.  Una felt a sense of kinship with her, as if they were the same kind of people.

"My name's Una Meredith," she said, smiling.  "What's yours?"  

"I'm Cecilia, but everyone calls me Cecy," the tawny-haired child said with an air of distinction.  She looked to be about six, with a dainty green polka-dotted dress and green ribbons in her hair.

"Cecilia…that was my mother's name," Una said softly.  "I've always loved it."

"It was my Aunt Cissy's name.  She died before I existed, and she wasn't really truly my aunt, but I don't have any really truly aunts, so Mummy says I can count her."

"Well, I suppose you can," Una said with an air of comradeship.  "I know that I count a lot of folks as family who aren't truly related to me."

"You understand, then," Cecy said in a relieved tone of voice.  "We can be friends then.  Shall we go exploring?"

Una gave a rueful glance at her partially eaten breakfast, but cheerfully acquiesced.  It was a wonderful day to explore the ship, sunny and bright with only a few puffy white clouds, which Cecy was sure were the sheep in Heaven.

"You see," she explained seriously, while Una struggled to keep a straight face, "if there were ninety and nine sheep that stayed in the fold, they would have to be somewhere.  Why not in Heaven?"

The morning passed swiftly, and the two, lifelong friends by this point, headed in to have lunch.  Upon entering, Cecy immediately went over to the couple Una had admired the night before.

"Mummy, Dad, this is Una.  We went 'sploring together this morning."

"Oh, so that's where you were," the dark-haired woman said.  "I was wondering, but didn't think you could get too far."  She turned and smiled at Una.  "I'm Valancy Redfern, and this is my husband Barney.  I hope Cecy hasn't been too much of a bother for you.  She's rather headstrong at times…I'm not sure where she gets it from."

The tawny-haired man—Barney—made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Redfern, Cecilia was no trouble at all.  I have a plethora of nieces and nephews back home, and it was nice to have her company," Una said sincerely.  

"Do please call me Valancy…and what did Cecy say your name is?" Valancy Redfern asked.  Una thought that they must be about the same age, although Valancy had an air of poise that she felt was lacking in herself.

"I'm Una Meredith, from Glen St. Mary's in Prince Edward Island."

"I thought you must be Canadian, too, the way you talk.  We're from Ontario—spend our time between Muskoka and Toronto.  Barney's father's in the patent medicine business, so we try and spend time with him so he can watch Cecy grow up.  But I'd say that our true home would be in Muskoka…at our Blue Castle."  Valancy smiled a secret smile as she said those words.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Una said sincerely.  Something about Valancy gave Una the impression that they could be good friends.  She sat down next to her at the table; Valancy's husband—Barney—and Cecy having gone off in pursuit of new adventures.

"Now tell me, where are you headed?  Barney and I were noticing you last night…you seemed so by yourself, but as if you were on the journey of a lifetime."

"I was noticing the two of you last night," Una laughed.  "You looked so…so in love, like you didn't have a care in the world."  Valancy's eyes twinkled, but she let Una continue.  "My trip…well, you guessed about right.  It _is _the trip of my life.  You see, in my father's will he left me a sum of money, with its express use being a trip to Europe.  I'd never dreamed of going, and I'm so excited."

"You'll simply have to let us show you around London," Valancy told her.  "Barney writes—under an assumed name—and we're meeting with his publisher in England."  She began to tell Una of all the things that she'd seen on previous visits.  Una found herself being drawn out of her shell without trying

"You know," Valancy said, looking appraisingly at Una, "I think we could be good friends.  We _should_ be friends.  I haven't had a girl friend in years, not since Cissy…the one we named Cecy after."

"I'd like that," Una said shyly.  She'd never made friends easily.  Most of her close relationships were people in the clan.  But something about Valancy drew her to her. 


	9. The Play's the Thing

**Chapter Nine—The Play's the Thing**

London was more fascinating than Una had ever dreamed.  She toured the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and Charles Dickens' house, drinking in the sights and sounds of hundreds of years of history.

"Give me my island any day," grinned Valancy.  "I couldn't breathe here."

"I suppose I couldn't live here forever," said Una thoughtfully, "but it would take me a long time to see everything I wanted to see."

"I've seen it, and now I'm getting ready to go home.  There's something about Muskoka that draws me to it, makes me feel homesick when I'm away for long."

"I've never felt that strongly about a place," Una confessed.  "I love Glen St. Mary's, but it's not in my blood as much as that island's in yours."

"Oh, I suppose it's more that Barney's there than the virtues of the island itself, however wonderful they are.  I'd live in a tent in the Sahara Desert if he was there."

"Maybe that's my problem," Una mused aloud.  "Maybe if there was someone in the Glen who meant to me what Barney means to you…"

"Perhaps," Valancy agreed.  Then, switching topics, "What are you going to going to wear to the play tonight?"

"The green, I think.  I'm excited…I've never seen _Macbeth_ before.  And they say that Sara Stanley is one of the best actresses since the days of Fanny Kemble and Mrs. Siddons."

"It's something, all right, to see her on stage.  I saw her two years ago…in _Hamlet_, I think it was.  She was Gertrude, and Gertrude simply stole the show.  Miss Stanley must be in her sixties by now, but she seems ageless.  She comes from PEI too, you know," Valancy told her.  "Her cousin, Beverly King—he owns some big newspaper—wrote a book about a year he spent there as a child.  Barney knows him fairly well…they have the same publisher.  That's how we got these tickets.  Bev offered them to us—he said he doesn't like to watch a play by himself."

******************************

"Dear Shirley," Una wrote later, sitting at the roll top desk in her hotel room, "I went to see _Macbeth_ tonight.  It was wonderful.  Sara Stanley is a tremendous actress…you feel that she's really Lady Macbeth, or whomever she's playing.  And then, after the performance, we had dinner with her and her cousin, Beverly King.

"Miss Stanley has a sort of presence about her—and her voice!  I don't know quite how to describe it; all I know is that it's more rich and vibrant than any other voice I've ever heard.  But for all that, I think that she wishes, sometimes, that she'd made different choices, maybe had a family or at least a husband.  She was talking about her cousin Felicity, who's a minister's wife—Peter Craig, maybe Jerry knows him.  She said that part of her, even though she loves her career as an actress, wishes that she was like Felicity, with 'nothing more than the next church supper to worry about', and I quote.

"And Bev King, the author, you know…I think he loves her, Shirley.  They grew up together, and maybe I'm just mistaking cousinly concern for something more, but his eyes seemed to say what he won't.  

"It is three o'clock in the morning, and I have no idea why I'm writing all of this to you, except that I'm scared that I'll be all alone at age sixty without anyone who cares about me.  I'm not saying 'yes' to your proposal yet, but I am getting closer to it.  Oh, Shirley, I have this feeling that I'm just writing a whole bunch of nonsense that will give you false hope…but I'll send it anyway.  Thinking of you and home, Una."


	10. Venice

**Chapter Ten—Venice**

Two months later, Una found herself en route to Venice.  She had loved her time in the British Isles with Valancy, Barney, and Cecy; in fact, she and Valancy had made a pact to write regularly, which they had done ever since the Redferns had gone back to Toronto.  Una had visited Belgium and Holland, sorrowing over the vestiges of the War that still remained.  Now she was on a train crossing the border between Switzerland and Italy, a place that she had always thought would be a rather nice place to see. 

Shirley's sapphire winked up at her from the ring finger of her left hand.  Dear Shirley!  Not long following the letter she had written after the play, he had replied, proposing marriage again.  Una had thought it over a long time—this was a good time to think about things, because none of the clan was around to give advice, had talked matters over with Valancy, and had finally decided to accept his proposal.

"I just don't know," Valancy had told her.  "Part of me wishes that you were madly, head-over-heels in love with him, and the other part of me reminds myself that Barney wasn't in love with me when we were married.  Do you love him at all, Una?"

"Of course," Una said.  "I've known him for a fairly large portion of my life.  Two sets of our siblings are married.  We both tend to be a little more on the quiet side.  It will be a good marriage."

"If you're happy…" Valancy told her.  She could tell that Una wasn't quite comfortable with the subject, so the best thing to do was not push it.

Una had written to Shirley, suppressing any doubts she might have had.  Shirley's ring had come to her in Holland—it was a beautiful ring, with a fine sapphire set in the band of gold.  Inside was engraved _SB to UM, 1932_.  Una felt that she cared more for Shirley every day, and letters sailed across the ocean from Redmond to Una's various hotels and back.

"Should I come home now?" she wrote to Shirley.  "I'm willing to get married whenever you want—I'd like a quiet wedding, with just the family present. (Although, I wouldn't say we have a quiet family!)  My trousseau will be what I got for the trip, and I'm going to wear my mother's wedding dress.  Just say the word, Shirley, and I'll be skimming back across the world to you."

Shirley told her not to cut her trip short in order for their wedding.  Since she was supposed to return in time for Christmas, they would be married then.  This was her once-in-a-lifetime trip, and she was to make the most of it.

*****************************

"Venice—the Bride of the Sea," Una sighed blissfully, sipping an iced tea at a little outdoor café overlooking the Grand Canal.  She had read somewhere that the light in Venice had a certain quality that could be found nowhere else on Earth, and so far whoever had said that was right.  There was a touch of gold in the sunlight that danced over the water, the red and white of the boatmen's' coats looked like peppermint candy, and her black hair seemed almost to shine.

It was the first Sunday in September, the day of the annual regatta held on the Grand Canal.  Una had gone to church at a small Presbyterian church in the morning, enjoying the sense of familiarity in a strange land.  It was a comfort to know that on the other side of the world, her relatives were quite possibly singing some of the same hymns as her.  

On her way to the church, she had passed the beautiful cathedral of St. Mark's.  Originally built for the doge, long-ago ruler of the Venetian Republic, it was in the shape of a Greek cross covered by a dome in the center and one over each of the arms.  Una had visited it earlier in the week and had been amazed at all the mosaics covering the inside walls and arches.  The Presbyterian church was much more humble, but it had the essence of home about it.

The café where she was now sitting was directly in front of one of the many campaniles that dotted the city.  Its bells chimed every hour on the hour, playing a beautiful melody.  _"Maybe I'll have to see if I can climb to the top of one before I leave,"_ she thought to herself.

The regatta had begun.  Since the only boat races Una had ever seen in her life were the ones down the brook in Rainbow Valley, she was excited.  The brightly colored boats moved gracefully along, propelled skillfully by their workers. Before she knew it, she found herself cheering, not even considering what her sister and sister-in-laws would have thought if they could have seen her.

"Come on!  You can do it!" she called softly.  "Keep going…you'll make it!"  She was so wrapped up in the boat race that she didn't even notice the shadow of the man standing behind her until he spoke.

"Are you from P. E. Island?  I'm from there, and your accent reminds me of home."


	11. A Tale of a Star

**Chapter Eleven—A Tale of a Star**

"Pardon me?" Una asked, startled.  She inadvertently slopped her iced tea over into the saucer.

"Your accent—it reminded me of Prince Edward Island, in Canada, where I once lived.  It's been twenty years since I've been home," the man said.  As he talked, Una studied him.  Not an overly tall man, with one shoulder somewhat higher than the other, she judged him to be about sixty.  His dark hair was sprinkled with silver, but his eyes were still alert.

"Yes, I'm an Islander," Una said, still confused.

"I do beg your pardon for speaking so out of turn," the man told her.  "I'm in rather good spirits.  I'm headed home for the first time in twenty years—home to the people I love."  He looked at Una, and she felt as if he could see into the depths of her soul.  "You seem to be by yourself, and also seem to be the sort of person who would understand.  Do you mind if I tell you my story?"

"Oh, no," replied Una, unsure of what else to say.  "Have a chair."   She began to feel like a character in one of the fairy tales reenacted in bygone days in Rainbow Valley.  Was she going to wake up soon, like Rip Van Winkle, and realize that a hundred years had gone by?  This stranger seemed quite peculiar—eccentric, but harmless.  She looked at his face more closely.   It looked like it had once been a jealous, mocking face, but time and sorrow had mellowed the hard lines into ones of wisdom.

"I loved a girl once…" he began.  "Perhaps you can't understand that—have you ever loved anyone?"

Una thought this to be a strange question to ask someone five minutes after meeting them, especially if the aforementioned someone happened to be wearing an engagement ring.  Unconsciously, she twisted Shirley's ring around and around her finger.  "Yes, I've loved someone," she said softly, her thoughts traveling backwards in time to the days before the Piper had piped his dance of death.

"Then maybe you can begin to understand what I felt.  I thought she'd never love me…old, crippled, hunchbacked me.  She was my Star, the light of the dark night of my life…" the man trailed off, remembering.  For several minutes he watched, unseeing, the gondolas on the canal.  Then he seemed to come out of his reverie and continued.  "And then, I played a horrible trick on her—I told her a lie, and out of that lie came a time where I thought she was going to die…oh, I went through purgatory then.  But she recovered, and agreed to marry me.  That summer…it was the golden summer of my life.  I should have known that it was too perfect to last.  There was a bond between her and a childhood friend—a bond that could reach across time and space.  How could I compete with that?   She broke our engagement.  I should have known it would happen, that it was too good to last. I was too old, and besides, there was the lie I'd won her by.  So I left the Island and traveled 'round the world.  I saw it all without truly seeing any of it, burdened by loss and guilt. 

"I laughed at the world with no humor in my laugh.  The Fates had played me a cruel trick, and I didn't want to feel better.  I wanted to wallow in my misery.  And then, I heard that my Star was to be married, to her childhood friend.  I gave them our house, the house we were to have shared together, as a wedding gift, but it hurt too much to ever think of returning to the Island and seeing her again."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Una asked curiously.

"No real reason at all, I suppose.  You remind me of home, and I'm sure you have a story to tell as well—a lone woman in the middle of Venice wearing an engagement ring but obviously by herself.  There's something in your face as well…something that makes me think you've been hurt in love.  It shows, you know, to fellow-sufferers."  There was a hint of a mocking tone in the man's last words, but Una felt she understood.  There had been many times when she had felt like laughing sardonically at life, but her family had given her something to care about.  This man seemed to have gone many years without anyone to care about except himself and a memory.

"So what happened?" Una asked, finding herself drawn into the story.  "You're going back now, so what changed your feelings?"

"I don't know how much my feelings are changed.  My Star is the only woman there's ever been or ever will be for me.  The memory of our summer together will succor me for the remainder of my days. But I can't live in the realm of Might-Have-Been.  It's time to go back and say farewell to my dreams, to shut that door in hopes of another one opening some day.

"And so I return, to the scene of my greatest happiness and greatest sorrow, back to the hamlet of Blair Water, to pat my Star's daughter on the head and be civil to her husband," he finished wryly, "knowing that she did the right thing and that I've been a fool all of these years."

"Blair Water?" Una asked curiously.  "My brother is the minister there—Jerry Meredith—of course, he came several years after you left."

"Oh, yes, I hail from Blair Water…or Priest Pond, to be more precise.  I never introduced myself, did I?  Dean Priest, a man without a country…it feels like it most days, anyway.  And who, Island girl, are you, now that I've laid open all the secrets of my heart to a perfect stranger?"

"Una Meredith, of Glen St. Mary's."

"Well, Miss Una Meredith of Glen St. Mary's, I seem to have intruded upon your time here in Venice.  Please accept my apology."  The mocking tone was quite strong now, almost as if he regretted baring his soul to her.  "Farewell, ma'am.  May the Fates treat you kindly and the ring on your finger bring you happiness."  And he was gone, with a slight bow, down the crowded street.


	12. Three O'clock in the Morning

**Chapter Twelve—Three O'clock in the Morning**

It was three o'clock in the morning, that accursed hour that holds the power to make us see ourselves as we truly are.  Una Meredith sat on her hotel room's balcony, unable to sleep.  She had tossed and turned for hours, Dean Priest's words echoing and re-echoing in her ears.

_"I can't live in the realm of Might-Have-Been.  It's time to go back and say farewell to my dreams, to shut that door in hopes of another one opening some day."_  

Una could still hear those words as clearly as when Dean had said them—they had struck home abominably well, piercing her to her very soul.  

_I suppose, when you get right down to the nitty-gritty of things, the reason I find myself wanting to marry Shirley so much is that he doesn't remind me of Walter.  Two brothers probably have never been more different—although I doubt that Cain and Abel were very much alike,_ she thought to herself, getting up from the wrought-iron chair she'd been sitting in and pacing the tiny balcony, oblivious to the beautiful darkness of the Venetian night surrounding her.

_I lived in the realm of Might-Have-Been for so many years, missing Walter…but have I truly left it yet?  When I say "I do" to Shirley, will I be saying, "I do pledge my entire heart, my entire love, my entire life to you", or will I be saying, "I do give you all of my heart, love, and life…except for the enormous piece that belongs to your dead brother"?  I care too much for him to relegate him to that._  She laughed sorrowfully, bitterly—it was a laugh that Dean Priest would have been familiar with.

_I can't go on like this, reliving my barren life over and over…I'll drive myself insane.  I need to say goodbye to the memory of Walter Cuthbert Blythe if I'm ever to say hello to the presence of Shirley Gilbert Blythe.  I was going to go to __Greece__ before I went home—I'd saved enough money for that.  Well, I won't.  I'll go to Courcelette and lay my ghosts to rest.  Then I'll find the next boat back to __Canada__, be it a fisherman's rowboat or the finest ocean vessel around.  I'll dogpaddle my way home if need be, throw myself in Shirley's waiting arms, realize that I've been madly in love with him all along, and live happily ever after, just like all the fairy tales.  _

_If only I didn't fear this trip to Courcelette so much…_

Una sighed.  Her decision, however hard it might be, had been made.  To France it would be then, in spite of how much she had wanted to avoid it.  Dean Priest would never know what an impact his melancholy ramblings had had on her, but they had influenced her life in a way that would change it forever.  

"Time for bed, Miss Una Meredith," she said out loud.  "You have a week left here in Italy before you head for France, so you need to make the most of it.  Get your sleep!"


	13. "God Bring You to a Fairer Place"

**Chapter Thirteen—"God Bring You to a Fairer Place"**

"Jane Austen, I think," Una had decided as she rummaged through the box of books she had purchased in London.  "_Mansfield__Park_."  From her limited understanding of French, she had come to the conclusion that the train ride from Paris, where she was staying, to the little village of Courcelette would be several hours.  Sick of trains, Una decided that she needed a good book to keep her occupied on the lengthy trip.  While in London, she and Valancy had stopped in a little, out-of-the-way bookstore, where she had bought several books that tickled her fancy, planning to keep some and give the rest as gifts to her family.

_Mansfield Park_, the story of shy, gentle Fanny Price and her cousin Edmund Bertram, appealed to her.  Una had read it at some point—perhaps curled up in the garret of the manse on a rainy afternoon. Settling into her very uncomfortable seat next to an extremely large Frenchwoman who seemed to be excessively fond of talking with her hands, causing Una to continually duck, she opened the book, ready to drift away into the English countryside of more than one hundred years previous.  A clipping from some paper fluttered into her lap.  Upon her perusal of it, Una found it to be a poem written by someone named Winifred Letts.

As she read the poem, entitled "The Spires of Oxford (as seen from the train)", Una shuddered at the thoughts expressed in the poem, the skill with which the poet showed the disparity between the previous lives of the young men and their fate on the battlefields of France.  _No—I won't think about the war.  I _won't_.  I _can't_.  All I want to do now is go to Courcelette, say goodbye to Walter, and return back to P.E.I. and Shirley.  I don't care about this poem, no matter how much it reminds me of those years.  _

*****************

Courcelette was a typical small French village with about twenty cottages surrounding the church.  Today was market day, and the main street was filled with bustling housewives bargaining in their loudest voices for the best deals possible on apples and onions.

"_Parlez vous Anglais?__"_ Una asked the owner of the flower stand, a very short white-haired man in a very red coat.  He grinned up at her—a strange sensation for Una, who didn't consider herself to be tall by any stretch of the imagination.

_"Oui, mademoiselle,"_  the man replied.  "My name is Louis.  And how can I help 'ou today?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me how to find the Canadian soldiers' cemetery," Una replied.

"Oh, zee cemeteray of zee Canadian boys…oui, everyone knows where it eez.  Follow zee main street to the edge of zee village, then turn left for about a kilometer.  There eez a little, how you say, park there."  He looked at her inquiringly.  "Why does mademoiselle wish to visit the cemeteray?"

"A…friend of my family's is buried there," Una told him, hoping that the blush she felt burning her cheeks wasn't visible.

"And you wish to pay your respects?  Good, good. One thing only, mademoiselle…do not stay there after dark."  This was said in an undertone, as if it was a special truth only to be imparted to her ears.

"Why ever not?" Una asked.  She had no intention of staying after dark; as a matter of fact, she had no intention of staying more than a few hours or so.  Longer than that, and she wouldn't have any way to return to Paris.  The last train left at six o'clock, and Una intended to be on it.  

"Why not?  Because zee place eez haunted, mademoiselle."

"Haunted?" Una echoed, curious.

"Oui, mademoiselle.  Haunted by zee Piper.  A ghost, you see.  Some say that he was a soldier, killed in the War…others say that he is older than that, that he has made his music as long as there have been wars and fighting," Louis told her, shivering in the autumn sunshine.  "For myself, I have nevair seen him—I do not need to see him to believe in his existence.  I have heard his song, though.  Every now and then, zee Piper plays his flute at night.  Such music!  One could almost understand why the soldiers followed him."

Una shivered.  A mysterious Piper who played music that made soldiers follow him all around the world—this was too familiar, hearkening back to a far-off evening in Rainbow Valley with the Blythes and Mary Vance.  One of the most famous poems of the War had come from Walter's presentiment that night, but Una felt no kindred feelings toward pipers of any sort, whether ghosts, specters, or figments of Louis' imagination. She did not want to hear any more.

"_Merci beaucoup._  Thank you very much," she told Louis coolly.  "I really must be going now—I don't want to miss the late train."

_"Au revoir, mademoiselle,"_ Louis grinned at her.  "Enjoy your visit, and take a bouquet of zee little white flowers I have as a gift from old Louis.  I hope I didn't frighten you…we here in Courcelette are quite proud of our ghost, but zee visitors who come don't seem to like him as much."

**************************

There were no ghosts in the small cemetery—at least none except the one in Una's memory.  Here, on the other side of the world from Glen St. Mary's, outside of a village of much the same size, a white cross among rows of white crosses marked the final resting place of Private Walter Cuthbert Blythe.  

THE CANADIAN CORPS BORE A   
VALIANT PART IN FORCING BACK   
THE GERMANS ON THESE SLOPES   
DURING THE BATTLES OF THE   
SOMME SEPT. 3RD - NOV. 18TH 1916,

read the inscription on the granite memorial at the entrance.   Courcelette had been the first major action by the Canadian Corps after they had left Ypres and the first battle where the armored tank had been used, but Una didn't care.  All she felt was an ache for what never had the chance to happen.

"I miss you, Walter," she whispered.  "You never really noticed me or paid that much attention to me, but I loved you.  Your family misses you, too.  Jem and Faith even named their first son after you.  I don't understand why you had to die so far from home.  I don't even know if I understand why war is even necessary."  A tear caught in a tendril of black hair that had escaped her hairpins.  Una hadn't wanted to cry, but it seemed to be happening anyway.  "I'm going to marry Shirley…somehow I'd never thought of him as anything except your brother.  But I think we'll be happy."  She idly twisted Shirley's ring around and around, subconsciously noting that it was a bit loose. 

"I love you, Walter Cuthbert Blythe.  I read a poem today that reminded me of you.  I didn't like it then, but now it seems a fitting eulogy for you and all the others buried here.  

_"I saw the spires of __Oxford_

_  As I was passing by,_

_The grey spires of __Oxford___

_  Against a pearl-grey sky;_

_My heart was with the __Oxford__ men_

_  Who went abroad to die._

_"The years go fast in __Oxford__,_

_  The golden years and gay;_

_The hoary colleges look down_

_  On careless boys at play,_

_But when the bugles sounded—War!_

_  They put their games away._

_"They left the peaceful river,_

_  The cricket field, the quad,_

_The shaven lawns of __Oxford__,_

_  To seek a bloody sod._

_They gave their merry youth away_

_  For country and for God._

_"God rest you, happy gentlemen,_

_  Who laid your good lives down,_

_Who took the khaki and the gun_

_  Instead of cap and gown._

_God bring you to a fairer place_

_  Than even __Oxford__ town."_

"God bring you to a fairer place / Than even Oxford town," she repeated softly, laying her bouquet of flowers on Walter's grave.  The sun was beginning to set as she left.  At the entrance Una turned and looked back.  One beam of sunlight hit something on the grass and sparkled as if in impish benediction.

Una smiled faintly.  "Goodbye, Walter.  Hello, Shirley."

Author's Note:  The poem used is, as is mentioned in the chapter, "The Spires of Oxford (as seen from the train)", and it is indeed written by Winifred Letts.  


	14. The Ring on Her Finger

**Chapter Fourteen—The Ring on Her Finger**

It was five thirty when Una reached the village.  As she walked by the remains of the market, Louis waved to her. 

"So happy I met 'ou, mademoiselle!  Old Louis wishes 'ou zee best of luck and a safe journey home," he called out, beaming jovially.

Una smiled rather helplessly.  She didn't want to smile; she felt drained and devoid of any emotion, but somehow she couldn't help herself.  Louis's high spirits seemed to bolster her low ones.

As Una found a seat in the train station—thankfully, one that she didn't have to share with anyone this time—she remembered the words of Dean Priest that had led her to where she was now._  "It's time to go back and say farewell to my dreams, to shut that door in hopes of another one opening some day."_  And his parting words:  _"Farewell, ma'am.  May the Fates treat you kindly and the ring on your finger bring you happiness."_  Well, how the Fates would treat her remained to be seen, and as for the ring on her finger…the ring…

Una gasped in horror.  At some point during her travels that day, Shirley's ring had fallen off!  Her head, which had already been filled with a jumble of emotions, decided that this was the proper time for a headache, causing any rational thoughts in her head to flee as fast as they could.  

_"If I don't come home with Shirley's ring,"_ she thought,_ "he'll want to know what happened to it.  I don't think that I could bear to tell him that I lost it paying my respects to his brother…he would wonder why I was there.  Then he'd find out that I love Walter, and he'd be hurt…what a mess I've made of things!"_

There was only one thing to do.  She would have to retrace her steps and find the ring.  It would mean staying the night somewhere in Courcelette…Una didn't know where, since she had seen no inn, but she would find something.  Grasping her handbag firmly, Una left the station, although not without a sigh.  She had wanted to make this visit as quickly and as painlessly as possible, make her exit, and never look back, although she hadn't known whether or not she could carry through with the third of those resolutions.

A memory of the afternoon flickered in her mind…a ray of the setting sun glinting off of something in the grass of the cemetery.  It must have been the ring!  She remembered it feeling loose on her finger, and it must have fallen off.  There was still twenty minutes or so until the last train arrived, and everyone knew that trains were always late.  She could run back, find the ring, and be on the train for Paris without any problems whatsoever.

It was twilight, the shadows growing longer and longer.  As Una hurried down the village street, searching for the ring all the while, one thought kept reoccurring in her mind.  _What if I can't find the ring?_  Raindrops began to fall, softly at first, then turning to a drenching autumn rain.  Una was soaked to the skin.  _What am I going to tell Shirley?_

Finally—the cemetery!  Una ran to where she thought she'd last seen the ring…but there was no ring there.  

"What am I going to do?" she cried.  Her day, while not an easy one, had been thought of as a conclusion to one chapter of her life…but the page had not yet been turned. 

A noise, somehow able to be heard above the rain, startled her.  It was like eerie, haunting music, played on a flute.  Louis's words drifted through her mind. _"…Zee Piper.  A ghost, you see…every now and then, zee Piper plays his flute at night.  Such music!  One could almost understand why the soldiers followed him."_

"No," Una told herself firmly.  "I am imagining things.  It's like the time that Faith, Carl, and I were scared of Henry Warren's ghost.  Just because Louis told me some story that sent shivers all throughout my body doesn't mean that the Piper is real.  It's just birds that I hear…no time for nonsense.  I need to find Shirley's ring!"

The ring was nowhere to be found.  Drenched, discouraged, and somewhat frightened, Una collapsed onto an old stone bench just as the train sounded it's "All aboard!" whistle back in the village.

"No!" Una sprung up and started to run.  A very small corner of her mind knew the attempt to catch the train was futile, but her scrambled emotions had taken over.  The music continued, much to her dismay.  A reoccurring hallucination is always more problematic than one that you only have once.

Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminated the cemetery.  A figure with a flute appeared, outlined by the light.  Una screamed, terrified.

The figure seemed to realize that she was there and took a step towards her.  Una backed up, tripping over a cross.

Then everything went black.


	15. The Piper

**Chapter Fifteen—The Piper**

The autumn storm that had hit Courcelette was still raging as Una drifted back into consciousness.  _I'm not being rained on, but I can hear the thunder…where am I? _Upon opening her eyes, she discovered that she was lying on an old bed in a little, low-ceilinged bedroom; where, she didn't know.  The heavy beams of the roof above her led her to believe that it was either one of the small cottages she had seen in the village or on the surrounding farms.  

_My head hurts.  There's some sort of cut on it.  My foot hurts, as well…I've probably twisted it, which would be preferable to breaking it.  Where_ am_ I?  The last thing that I remember was the lightning…and that person in the cemetery…was it a person?  Was it the Piper?  No, I'm being silly again.  _

Una slowly raised her head up from the thin pillow and looked around her in the dim candlelight.  Although the room itself seemed like her preconceptions of a French farm cottage, the furnishings did not.  The only furniture was the narrow bed that she was in, one straight-backed chair, and a small nightstand stacked with books.  There were no pictures on the walls.  In short, it was a very drab little room.

_I wonder what books are on the stand?  I can see that the top one with the bouquet of little white flowers on it is a Bible, and that almost looks like a copy of Keats's poems underneath.  I hadn't realized that many of the people around here spoke English all that well, let alone that they would want to read British poetry for enjoyment.  My mysterious hosts.  Well, they can't be any stranger than that Mrs. Amelia Pitman that Rilla and Jims met when they fell off of the train.  At least we'll speak the same language, _Una mused to herself.  She tried to sit up so that she could inspect the room better, but her head hurt too much, causing her to sink back onto the pillow.

She could hear someone moving around softly in another room, as if they were trying to let her rest in quiet.  _Maybe this is the room that these people keep for strange Canadian women who wander around in cemeteries during rainstorms.  Cemeteries…rainstorms…oh, no!  I still don't have Shirley's ring!  _Frustrated, a small moan escaped her lips.

Almost immediately, the door opened, framing a tall figure in the weak light.  "Are you awake now?" a masculine voice asked kindly, with no trace of a French accent.  "I was beginning to wonder how hard you hit your head."

"Fairly hard, I think," Una smiled weakly.  "It hurts rather fiercely, and so does my ankle."

The man stepped into the room.  He looked to be about her age or possibly a few years older, with black hair that had a distinguished touch of silver to it.  His grey eyes spoke of the capacity for either great joy or pain, although the latter seemed to be more familiar to him.

"We can try and fix that easily enough.  When I carried you in, it looked as though you'd sprained it.  I can get you something to soak it in."  He looked at her curiously.  "What brought you out to the cemetery on such a night?  It's the worst storm we've had in months!"

Una felt rather embarrassed telling a complete stranger why she'd been prowling around in a thunderstorm, so she turned the tables on him.  "Were you the Piper out there playing your flute?" she asked as defiantly as her throbbing head would allow her.

The man looked rather taken aback.  "Yes, I was playing my flute…what do you mean by 'the Piper'?" he posed.

"I knew a poem about a Piper once," Una said slowly.  "He played his flute and people followed him all over the world, wherever he went, even if it meant their death.  But they followed…"

"No, I'm not the Piper," the man laughed dryly.  "I know him…I know him quite well.  We became personally acquainted in the War, but I'd seen him before that.  I know exactly what you mean.  I suppose I was playing my flute as one of his emissaries tonight.  I play in memory of what happened here, years ago."

Una shivered.  

"Are you cold?" the man asked.  Una shook her head.  "I didn't mean to bother you with my gloom and doom tales.  Besides, you never did tell me why you were there."

"I was looking for my engagement ring," Una said, her face flushing.  _What type of fool lost an engagement ring?_  "I had come here to visit the grave of a family friend, and while I was here, I lost my ring.  I didn't realize it until I was in the train station."

"What does your ring look like?" the man asked.

"It's gold with a sapphire," Una told him.  "Have you seen it?"

"Might this be it?" the man answered, drawing her ring out of his pocket.

"Why, yes, it is.  However did you find it?" she queried.

"I'm the self-styled keeper of the cemetery," her rescuer smiled.  "I've made it my job to keep track of the grounds.  Normally, I have what must be one of the simplest jobs in France.  Imagine my surprise today when I found your ring."  He held it up to the candle so as to read the inscription.  "'SB_ to UM, 1932'_.  What would your name happen to be, ma'am?  I assume that you are the mysterious _UM_."

"That would be a correct assumption," Una's eyes danced.  Something about this stranger reminded her of Shirley, of days gone by in Rainbow Valley.  "My name is Una Meredith."

The man's face seemed to grow pale, but that could have been the candlelight.  "Una Meredith…what a lovely name.  And what, pray tell, do you plan to change it to?  At least, when one wears an engagement ring, other parties can expect a name change to be forthcoming."

Una thought to herself that although she should be horribly offended about a stranger asking her such personal information, it was surprising that she was only mildly affronted.  "Blythe…Una Blythe.  My fiancé's name is Shirley Blythe."

 "And, Miss Una Meredith, soon to be Mrs. Shirley Blythe, where do you live?  You don't seem to be particularly French."  He looked at her intently.

"Neither do you!" Una retorted.  Her head was aching worse than before, and the worm finally turned.  "If it is any of your business, which I don't believe it is, I hail from Glen St. Mary's of Prince Edward Island in Canada!"  

"It _is_ my business, or at least, it used to be," the man said softly.  He looked as though he was having a hallucination, with eyes that seemed to be seeing something long ago and far away.  "Glen St. Mary's…does your sister Faith still live there?  Miss Cornelia and Mary Vance? The…the Blythes?"

Hallucinations were in the air, Una decided.  If it wasn't for the absolute fact that sixteen years before, there had been a certain charge by the Canadian army very near where she was staying, the stranger could have almost been… "_Walter_?" she whispered incredulously.  

"Yes, Una?" he answered.


	16. From Death to Life

**Chapter Sixteen—From Death to Life**

"_Walter_…what…how…aren't you…I thought—_Walter_?"  Una found herself completely incapable of stringing three words together in a coherent manner.  

"Lie back down, Una.  You hit your head pretty hard when you fell.  I don't want you to get hurt any worse than you are already," he told her softly.  

"That's it…I hit my head.  That's why you're alive.  You're supposed to be dead.  Did you know that, Walter?  You're dead.  And I'm babbling.  I can't believe I'm babbling.  I never babble…" Una's head was spinning.  This couldn't all come from a bump on the head, could it?  She wasn't supposed to be seeing things that weren't there.  Or feeling them, for that matter.  But a hand seemed to be brushing her hair out of her face, smoothing out her blankets.

"You've been up long enough, probably.  Is your head hurting you badly?"  He waited for her nod of assent.   "You've just had a shock…I admit that I'm rather shaken also."  His voice was cool and matter-of-fact—it reminded Una of Dr. Blythe's bedside manner—but there was a tremor to it.  "Lie here for a while…if your head stops hurting, try to sleep.  We can do something about your ankle in the morning; when I felt it earlier, it didn't seem to be broken.  I'll check in on you every now and then."

Una opened her mouth to protest.  In the last few minutes, reality had turned completely upside-down, and she wanted an explanation.

Walter seemed to be able to read what she was thinking.  "We'll talk in the morning.  You need to be able to rest…for that matter, I do too."  He brushed his hand along her cheek.

He left, closing the door behind him quietly.  Una exhaled a shuddering breath.  What was going on?  _Why…how…isn't he…?  What will Dr. and Mrs. Blythe think?  What about Shirley?  Walter Blythe, I hope you have some answers, because you have a lot of explaining to do for the clan.  _The pain in her head was decreasing slightly.  Finally, Una managed to drift off into a light sleep.

********************************

She woke several hours later to find Walter bending over her, feeling her forehead.

"Am I still dreaming?" she asked sleepily, pulling the covers around her chin.  "Faith and I were children cleaning house, but Mary Vance was dancing around with a codfish wearing striped stockings and a beaded purse."  Her brows furrowed.  Somehow, the dream, which had seemed perfectly logical during its occurrence, now made no sense whatsoever.

"No, you're truly here.  I'm just checking to see if you have a fever," he told her.

"Do I?"

"You don't seem to.  I think you'll be just fine."  Una was reminded once again of Dr. Blythe's bedside manner in the confident way he talked.  If he said she'd be fine, fine she would be.

"Walter," she said hesitantly, as if expecting him to disappear with the mention of his name, "what time _is_ it?"

"About one in the morning…and it's still raining.  I didn't mean to wake you up; I haven't been able to sleep, so I thought I'd check in on you."

"You seem like a doctor," Una said, sitting up in bed.  Walter sat down on the straight-backed chair.  "Is that what you've been doing for all these years?"

A shuttered look came over his face.  "No.  I worked in a hospital for a while, but I'm not a doctor."

"Then it must be genetic."  

"I suppose it must."

"So where _have_ you been, Walter?  We all thought you were dead!"

"No, I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said.  Una was reminded once again of the bitterness she'd heard in Dean Priest's voice; only Walter's also had a dull quality to it.

"Oh, no!  I didn't mean that at all!" Una cried.  "It's not a disappointment to find out you're alive…it's a surprise.  Everyone will be so happy to see you."

"Will they?  I don't think so.  I wrote home in 1919, telling what had happened to me and where I'd been, but I never had a reply.  A son who had worked in a German military hospital of his own free will wouldn't look good for Dr. Blythe, would it now?  Much easier to pretend that the aforesaid son had died when he was supposed to."  Walter propped his elbows on his knees and sunk his face into his hands.

Una was indignant.  "Walter Cuthbert Blythe, you're talking nonsense.  I don't know what you did or where you've been, but your family wouldn't care if you'd been in Outer Mongolia.  Maybe this letter of yours never made it to Canada.  Maybe it ended up being sent to another Gilbert Blythe.  Who knows?  All I know is that your family has never been the same since you…" She paused, unsure of what the proper terminology was for a death that hadn't happened.  "Well, since the reports of your death were greatly exaggerated."

Walter smiled faintly.  "Mark Twain, eh?  He also said that an excessive concern with timing was the key to success.  My timing's been wrong for sixteen years.  Couldn't even manage to die when I thought I was supposed to."

"You mean when you had your premonition of the Piper?"

He looked at her in astonishment.  "You remember that?  Yes, then.  I expected to die, but circumstances seem to have prevented it."

Una looked at him slowly, juxtaposing the memory of the young, dreamy poet she had once known with the bitter man sitting by her bed.  What had made the change?  Where had the Walter she had once known gone?  Was he still there?  After some time had passed in silence, she asked him.  

"What happened, Walter?  How did you get from Glen St. Mary's to here?"

"Well, Francis Ferdinand decided to get shot back in 1914," he answered with a tinge of irony.  "I can guarantee that that little happening had something to do with it."

"Walter…please?"

"Does your head still hurt?" 

"Not nearly as much as it did.  But, Walter…"she trailed off, not wanting to push too much.

"It's hard to talk about everything that's happened, but you are entitled to an explanation, I suppose.  You always did have the knack of listening to a person, even when we were children.   Well, it did start indirectly with Francis Ferdinand, on the night of the dance at the Four Winds light…"


	17. That Strange, Strange Night

**Chapter Seventeen—That Strange, Strange Night**

"As soon as the news came, I knew I should go fight," Walter said quietly.  "Yes, I'd had rheumatic fever, but I was better.  I knew I was well enough to fight, but I just couldn't stomach the idea.  That had always been Jem's bailiwick—fighting and enjoying it.  I'd always fought only when I had to—like when I fought Dan Reese…"  His voice trailed off, remembering that long-ago day in the Glen.  "And I hated ugliness…and I knew that the War would be ugly.  I had no idea how ugly."

"Finally, I knew that if I wanted to be able to live with myself, I'd have to go.  If I didn't, I figured that I'd be a coward to…certain people in the Glen.  I went for myself as well, to prove that I wasn't a coward."

Una looked indignant.  "_I_ never thought of you as a coward.  And I'm sure that anyone who had tried to say such a thing to either of our families would have been properly squelched!"

An odd look crossed Walter's face, but he continued on without comment.  "When I reached France, it was not at all like the France I had read about.  Our first week, we were in the front lines of the trenches.  You'd be sitting there, talking to one of your mates, when there'd be a loud boom—you'd look over, and the person you'd be talking to would be dead, with the top of his head blown off by a shell.  You could never fully relax, even when you had a chance to sleep, because if the alarm came over for gas, woe to those soldiers who were caught without a gas mask.

"And the mud and rats!  Una, it was like nothing you've ever seen, or hopefully will ever see, in your life.  But that wasn't the worst part of it for me.  The worst part was the other men in my battalion.

"One of the men—Lew Hermans—had been at Redmond with me, but had joined up earlier.  He knew that I'd been sent a white feather at college, and made sure that everyone else in our battalion knew as well.  And when they found out that my middle name was Cuthbert, I was done for."

"What does having Cuthbert for a middle name have to do with anything?" Una asked, puzzled.

"'Cuthbert' was slang for a coward in England—someone who either wasn't in the War, or had gotten an easy job back at home, or Blighty, as the British called it.  Once that got around, that was my nickname. It made no difference to the other men that I was there fighting right along with them.  I was still a coward at heart, and they knew it."

"But you received the D.C. medal for saving a comrade…" Una trailed off.  

"Yes, and you know who it was?" Walter laughed bitterly.  "Lew Hermans.  But it didn't seem to make any difference.  He just sneered, 'Well, Cuthbert, I guess you showed some guts for once.  Maybe a few years of this'll make a man out of you.'"

Walter talked on and on, the strain of the memories apparent in his voice as Una began to see what had caused such a transformation in her former playmate.  "I couldn't write poetry to save my life, except 'The Piper'.  That night I wrote it—it was like coming up out of deep water into fresh air.  Even if I couldn't be the greatest soldier since Napoleon, I had done something worthy with my life.  How was I to know that it was the last poem I'd ever write?"

When "The Piper" became famous, Walter continued, nothing changed outwardly.  He was considered even more of a sissy than he had been previously.  However, inwardly, he found war a little easier to deal with.  If mere words could have such an effect around the globe, he would fight for the writers of words yet to be.  "I understood the concept of patriotism—it would have been hard to find someone who loved his native land more than I loved the Island.  And since there seemed to be no other way to protect the Island and those I loved except through bloodshed, bloodshed it was…though something in me recoiled every time I had to pull the trigger of my gun.

"That last night of my old life…the night I wrote Rilla…Una, did you ever see that letter?  I asked her to show it to you," Walter said.

"Yes," Una answered quietly.  She disliked the notion of telling Walter that it was in her trunk back at her inn, that she had memorized it years before.  There were some topics that didn't need to come up on this strange, strange night.

"It was the oddest thing, that night…" Walter shook his head, remembering.  "All that night, I kept seeing your face before me.  I could see you and hear Rilla's laugh.  The two of you and the Piper.  I figured that the Piper was going to pipe me 'West' the next day, and Rilla seemed to represent the life I'd held so dear, but you…I couldn't seem to get you out of my head, though I couldn't understand why.  I wouldn't have thought…"  He looked at her abruptly, as if he'd just remembered that she was in the room with him.  "No disrespect meant, Una.  I always treasured our friendship.  I just never could figure out why you were one of my 'deathbed visitations'."

Una thought privately that she could answer that riddle, but chose not to. 

"What happened that next day?" she asked.  "We heard that you had been killed by a bullet during the very beginning of the charge."

"I don't know if I'll ever know for certain what happened that day.  I _was hit by a bullet; hit me in the left shoulder and knocked me off my feet a bit.  Directly afterwards, a shell went off right by me, just as I fell unconscious.  I never realized that I was considered dead for quite a while, just a prisoner.  What I do know is that when I woke up, my identification tag that was always around my wrist—we had one for our wrist and one around our neck; they gave name, rank, and church affiliation—the one around my wrist was gone.  There was a slight scratch on my arm, so I assume that when the shell went off, a piece of shrapnel sliced through the string holding my tag on.  I would assume that the man next to me was killed—probably someone found my tag and assumed that I had 'gone West' as well."_

Walter stopped abruptly and looked at her with concern.  "How are you feeling?  Do you need to sleep?"

"No, my head hurts too much.  I slept a little earlier; that should be enough for now," Una said, rubbing the injured member.  "Continue…please?"

"The prison camp was sheer torture at first.  All I remember of the first few weeks is excruciating pain, pain beyond anything I'd ever known.  They told me later that it had been anyone's guess as to whether I'd live or die…I honestly don't know why they bothered to try and save me.

"There was a man, a Doktor Ernst Schwartz, there who had met my father, back when he and Mother had visited Europe for a medical convention.  He was the one who really tried to save me, I heard—had been very impressed with Dad's capabilities as a physician and remembered my mother as a lovely, gracious woman.  He fought day and night to heal my wounds and, when I had recovered, fought just as hard to heal my spirit.  He had two children:  a son, August, who had died two weeks before Courcelette, and a daughter, Gretchen.  His wife had died when Gretchen was born, and he remembered my mother's kindness to his children.  I suppose I helped fill August's place, in a way.

"It never seemed to make any difference to Doktor Schwartz that I had fought against his country.  When I had healed enough to work, he had me as his aide in the hospitals, taking care of Germans, French, and English alike.  According to him, I had the hands of a healer."

"Your father's hands," Una whispered, looking at the long, capable fingers now knotted together in the agony of remembering.

"I don't think he was correct—Jem was always the one with medical tendencies—but I helped him all I could out of gratitude.  When he was transferred to a prison camp in Germany, I went with him.  I don't know how he ever cleared it with the authorities, but somehow, he did.  I think that then was the time that I realized that not all Germans were evil Huns, bent on butchery and terror.  Many of them didn't know why they were fighting, except out of patriotism to their country.  And what more did most Canadians fight for?

"After the Armistice, I wrote home, explaining what had happened and my changed feelings about the War.  I never received an answer.  I supposed that to my family, I was as good as dead.  Later on, I found out that I had been reported as killed at Courcelette.  No matter—when the letter reached them, they probably decided that I should continue being dead, rather than embarrass the Blythe name.  Doktor Schwartz asked me if I would come back to Germany with him, and since I had nowhere else to go, I went with him."

Una thought about this.  It was an almost inconceivable thought that a German could be human enough to care about a war-sick young man and practically adopt him as a son.  And for Walter to believe that his family had rejected him…

"That was in 1919," Walter continued.  "For ten years, I lived with the Schwartzes as Doktor Schwartz's assistant, eventually becoming fluent in German and Polish, with a smattering of French—we lived in St. Suffom, which is near the border of Germany and Poland…I suppose that Prussia would be a better way to describe it.  There was a fair amount of prejudice against me as a Canadian, but the Doktor wouldn't stand for anyone to malign me in his presence.  However, it was a small town, much like the Glen—you know what's being said."  He smiled wryly.  "I never could win—destined to always be a coward or a turncoat, I suppose."

"That's not true," Una protested as vehemently as she could, her headache being taken into consideration.

"Well, we won't debate it one way or the other."  Walter dismissed her protest and continued on.  "Doktor Schwartz died in the fall of 1929, not long before the stock market crash in the States.  He'd left everything to Gretchen and me equally, having no other family; unfortunately, by the time the will was read, the estate was worth considerably less than he had intended—he had speculated heavily with the little money he had accumulated.  Gretchen is the sort of woman that people will rise up and call blessed—the Doktor hoped that we'd fall in love, I think—and I gave her what was left of my share and came here.  St. Suffom had nothing left for me once Doktor Schwartz was gone."

"Not Gretchen?" Una asked curiously, wondering what this mystery woman was like.

"No…I thought of her as a sister, much like Di.  We had splendid talks, and she knew that I'd never care for her that way…nor did she want me to.  She was in love with the baker from the next village, and they married not long after I left, I believe.  I never went back."

"Why did you come here?" Una asked, feeling oddly relieved that this paragon of a Gretchen had not managed to capture Walter's heart.  She twisted Shirley's ring around her finger.

"Penance," he said.  "That's it in a nutshell.  Since I didn't die when I was supposed to, I felt an obligation to the place, to _be the Piper, I suppose.  I take care of the place, collecting stray rings and dead leaves."_

Una blushed at the mention of stray rings, hoping that the dim light would obscure her face.  

"I try not to let people see me; I honestly prefer my solitude.  When I need supplies, I go to a village a ways away.  Once in a while, I'll hear the mention of 'zee Piper of Courcelette', who plays his flute for the dead soldiers.  Such a legend is comforting, in a way.  I've finally found my place."

"Walter…this can't be your place, can it truly?  Come home with me to Glen St. Mary's.  Something _must have happened to that letter—I can't imagine your family, any of them, ever turning their backs on you.  Your mother nearly died of grief when we heard of your supposed death," Una pleaded, sitting up in bed with a distressed look on her face._

"Calm down, Una.  Lie back down.  I don't want you to worry about anything right now.  Let me make you some tea to help you sleep again.  We'll talk about serious matters in the morning."

Una's head spun as she heard Walter clattering away at the stove in the other room.  This was not the Walter she had known, for certain.  But this man, bitter and hurt, filled her with compassion.  _He has to come home, she thought, sipping the strong herbal tea.  __He has to see his family again.  Then, an unbidden thought…__What on earth will Shirley say?  _


	18. The Letter

**Chapter Eighteen—The Letter**

"Won't you go back?" Una asked Walter the next morning.  "I'm sure that there must have been some mistake."

"What kind of mistake could there have been?  Right after the Armistice, when a Canadian battalion came to the camp where we were stationed, I wrote my letter.  I said that I'd worked with a German doctor for three years and had come to believe that England had not totally been in the right during the War, nor Germany in the wrong.  I signed, sealed, and addressed the envelope.  I couldn't deliver it personally to the commanding officer because I had patients to deal with, so I gave it to Doktor Schwartz to give to him."

"And it couldn't have been lost somewhere between Germany and P.E.I.?"

"I suppose so…but why would it have been?  It was given to an officer who was returning to Canada.  He would have sent it in the first mail possible, and it would have had top priority, since it was in with military documents."

Una sighed softly.  Convincing Walter that he needed to come home to his family was a task she wasn't sure if she could handle.  Believing he was alive was almost inconceivable—if it wasn't for his almost continual presence, she was sure that she would have doubted herself—but trying to persuade him to return to the Island was an even more difficult task.  He was convinced that Anne and Gilbert, once they received the letter, had decided to blot him out of their existence and never tell anyone that he was alive.

"But they're your _parents!" Una said in frustration.  "It practically killed your mother when the news of your 'death' reached her.  You knew your parents—would they really do that to their own flesh and blood?  Think of your mother, and how she grew up without a loving family for so long.  Would she deliberately decrease the size of the one she has now?  They __love you, Walter, whether alive or dead."_

"But what about the letter?" Walter asked.  "You can't escape that part of it."

Una inwardly gritted her teeth.  "We don't know what happened to the letter…ad infinitum.  I suppose we'll never come to a resolution on this point.  I just don't understand why you think that your family would reject you."

"They already did…and I don't mean the letter."

"_What?"  Una felt her head start to hurt again.  The beauty of the French countryside was lost on her and Walter as their eyes met—hers shocked, his bitter._

"I hated to tell you this part; I know that you're marrying into our family, and I didn't want you to think less kindly of us because of it."

"Shirley?  But how?"

"Not Shirley—Jem.  I told you that Doktor Schwartz was transferred to Holland and that I went with him as an assistant.  I wore a German medic's uniform—my Canadian one was completely out of the question, even if it hadn't been tattered and bloodstained.  Jem was in that camp for a while, until he escaped."  Walter paused.  "Did he make it home safely?"

"Yes, he did," Una said.  "He and Faith were married, and they have three children—Walter, Matthew, and Meredith."

"And that is how it should be, I suppose.  The hero slays the dragon, marries the princess, and lives happily ever after, while the wandering minstrel…but I digress.  I didn't know that Jem was there for quite a while; he must have been in good health.  But one night, the Doktor sent me out to deliver medicine to a prison guard.  On my way back, I was met by a group of prisoners returning from the latrines.  One of them spat at me…I looked up into the hate-filled eyes of my older brother."  Walter's face was filled with pain.  Una held his hands between hers, trying to comfort him.

"Are you sure it was him?"

"Yes.  One of the other men with him said, 'He's not worth your time, Blythe,' and Jem agreed.  'I suppose you're right, Barry.  _Boche!'  He spit at me again.  No, Una, I'm not going back."  Walter got up abruptly from the chair by her bedside and went outside, slamming the door behind him._

Una remembered an odd story that Jem had told the family after the War, one that she felt might have been the other side to Walter's tale.  "It was the oddest thing, one night in the prison camp.  Stephen Barry—you know, he married Esme Dalley—and I were coming back from the latrines with a group of other prisoners.  It was night, so of course I couldn't see clearly, but one of the medical assistants walked by.  In the dim light, he reminded me of Walter so strongly.  I knew Walter was dead, of course, and it made me angry.  What right had a German to look like my brother?  I spat at him, and he looked up at me.  The look on his face reminded me so much of Walter after we'd have an argument…at that moment, I hated war with a passion."

Una decided to tell Walter what she remembered Jem saying.  Of course, he would tell her that Jem had simply made it up, but maybe it could help change his mind.  Wanting to keep her mind off of both the pain in her head and in her heart, she rummaged through Walter's bedside table, looking for a book to read.  The Bible; Keats's poems; _The Moral of the Rose, by Emily Byrd Starr—apparently Walter had tried to keep in touch with what was being written. Somehow, though, none of those appealed to her.  She flipped through several more books, but couldn't find anything.  Goethe's __Faust was the last book on the pile.  Una had never read __Faust, but what she had heard of the plot was sufficiently gloomy to fit with her mood.  _

            The book was old, with a green and gold cover, and didn't appear to have been read in years.  When Una opened it, she felt a sense of disappointment—it was in German.  As she placed it back on the table, an old, yellowed envelope fluttered to the floor.

*****************

When Walter came back in several hours later after roaming the grounds of Courcelette, he was met at the door by Una, looking as if she had experienced a resurrection.  Tears were in her eyes, and an old letter was in her hand.  Wordlessly, she handed him the envelope.  It was addressed to Dr. Gilbert Blythe, Ingleside, Glen St. Mary's, PEI, Canada. 

Walter looked at the seal.  It had never been broken.  There were no postage marks on the letter whatsoever.  He looked incredulously at Una, who read the unspoken question in his eyes.

"In your copy of _Faust."_

Walter's reply came slowly.  "That was the Doktor's favorite book…he spent hours reading it.  He said once that he'd seen enough people in the War sell their souls that the concept seemed plausible.  He left me the book, but my grasp of written German is poor enough that I never attempted to read it."  Walter looked at Una, truth beginning to dawn.  "He never mailed that letter."

"You said last night that he considered you a son.  Perhaps he didn't want to lose you, too."

"He never mailed it, Una.  For years, I've believed that my family disowned me.  I never knew."

"But now you do," Una said softly.  "Don't judge him too harshly, Walter.  Who knows why he kept the letter.  He must have intended you to find it at some point after his death."

Walter stroked the address on the letter.  "My…my family!  How will they ever forgive me for not trying harder to let them know I was alive?"  He began to weep, the pent-up tears of years spilling over.  Una saw the boy she had known in those tears, and she held him as he wept, crying herself for both joy and sorrow.

"You'll come home now?"

"I'll come home, if they'll have me."


	19. Storms Inside and Out

**Chapter Nineteen—Storms Inside and Out**

" 'There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood/Touch of manner, hint of mood…The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry/Of bugles going by'—Una, are P. E. Island autumns as colorful as they once were, or are they merely magnified in my memory?" Walter asked, leaning against the rail of the _Queen Anne and gazing unseeing at the ocean below.  "Carman had a knack for describing things…I've found myself reciting that poem more times than I can remember over the past years, remembering the trees in Rainbow Valley."  He sighed.  "Do you think my family will ever understand?"_

Now it was Una's turn to sigh.  This conversation, or a variance of it, was continually reoccurring.  She kept trying to reassure Walter that his family would understand, but he didn't seem to believe her.  "The trees are always beautiful in the fall, but I think I prefer Rainbow Valley in the spring, when all the mayflowers are hidden away in the corners and crevices, waiting for someone to discover them."

"Does Jem still bring Mother the first mayflowers?"

"Only if he can find them before his eldest son.  Ever since Dr. Blythe told him of the tradition, Walter always tries to find them for Faith.  Last year, both Jem and Walter spent days combing the valley, studiously ignoring the other searching mere yards away."

"Has Shirley brought you mayflowers?" Walter asked in jest, his eyes twinkling.

Una blushed, inwardly writhing as she did so.  For mercy's sakes, she was going to _marry Shirley!  If she turned scarlet every time his name was mentioned, she might as well spend the rest of her days with a sack over her head.  "His proposal came after the first mayflowers, and I didn't accept him until I was in Europe," she said primly.  "There has not been an opportunity."_

"I'll have to give him some brotherly advice, then.  Does he know what sort of a jewel of a woman he's getting?  Tenacious, gentle, feisty…and my deliverer.  How can he ever deserve you?" Walter grinned.

"I think it's more of a question of how can I ever deserve him," Una said rather ruefully.  Shirley was the most patient man she knew, willing to wait for her to have her trip of her lifetime before they made any definite plans for their future.  Perhaps, she wondered, he had hoped that absence would, indeed, make the heart grow fonder.  His letters were slowly penetrating her heart, closed for so long, and if she was reading them correctly, hers had already won his.  But all that had been before the storm at Courcelette…Una closed her eyes, trying to analyze her emotions since that episode.  The Walter she had found was not the boy she had loved in secret, but a man, scarred and embittered.  She didn't want to know if the love she had left with the flowers at his supposed grave was truly gone—that part of her life was over.  It was time to move on, to marry Shirley and make a new life for her self.  She and Walter would be brother-and-sister-in-laws, nothing more.  

"We should go in to dinner now.  It looks like a storm coming up," Una said abruptly, shaking loose tendrils of hair out of her face.  Walter followed her, watching her stiff back.  Something in the mention of Shirley had touched a nerve, but he wasn't sure what.

**************

Walter Blythe sat by the porthole in his cabin, watching the waves toss up and down.  _There's no stability left in life, not even in nature, he thought to himself.  Ever since Dr. Schwartz's betrayal had been discovered, he had felt like his legs were knocked out from under him._

Frankly, he was terrified at the thought of going home.  Home…did such a place even exist anymore?  Was it true that his family hadn't truly rejected him?  Walter found it hard to fathom—for years, he'd considered himself to be cast off by those he loved the most.  Instead, the person he'd trusted the most in the world had been the one who'd been lying to him.

Una was the only dependable anchor to his life at the moment; the only link between his childhood and the cottage at Courcelette.  He had spoken truly earlier—Shirley was a fortunate man to be marrying this woman.  A man…he had a hard time thinking of his little brother, an awkward, reticent adolescent when he last saw him, as a man in his thirties, engaged to be married.  Walter nodded to himself; Shirley and Una would suit each other well.  There was a look in Una's eyes he had seen several times over the last week, a wistful look that spoke of sorrow and dashed hopes.  But then Una's eyes had always been wistful.  Perhaps she had lost someone in the War—at any rate, Shirley would love her like she deserved and drive the shadows away.  

Una knocked at the connecting door between their cabins.  "May I come visit for a while?  I'd prefer some company with the storm going on."

"By all means, come in," Walter said, giving her the chair.  He sat down on the edge of the bunk, trying to come up with a topic to shut out the storm outside.  "Let me see if I have all my nieces and nephews straight.  Jerry and Nan married, and their children are Dianne, Blythe, and John.  Rilla and Ken married, and they have four children?"

"Five.  Gilbert, for your father; Gertrude—they call her Trudy—for Miss Oliver; Willis, after your maternal grandmother's last name; Cornelia Susan; and Owen.  And there should be a sixth one by Christmas…I don't know what they'll name him or her."

"The family does seem to reuse names over and over."

"Yes, somehow we ended up with a Blythe Meredith and a Meredith Blythe," Una laughed.

"Is Meredith much like her mother?" Walter asked quietly.

"The spitting image, both in personality and looks.  She and her brothers always have the Glen in an uproar over their peccadilloes, just as we always did."

"I can't think of anything too dreadful that you ever did," Walter said, "but I know that Faith managed to cause a sensation wherever she went.  She even dared me to ride a pig once."

"And you did, didn't you?" Una asked, smiling at the memory. 

"I think if she'd asked me to chop off my head, I would have done it," Walter said seriously.  Una didn't notice the look on his face.                                                            

"And you fought Dan Reese for her honour, because he'd called her 'pig-girl' and 'rooster-girl'…"

"I think that was when I fell in love with her," Walter said, almost to himself.  Una, who had been lost in reverie, sat bolt upright.  She supposed she should be surprised at this revelation, but somehow she wasn't.  Faith had always been bright and beautiful, even at twelve.

"You loved Faith?  I never knew that."

"No one ever did…I made sure of that.  After the fight with Dan, I dreamed of all the opportunities I might have to be her knight again.  I saved the blue hair ribbon she'd let me wear around my arm until I lost it in the prison camps.  Nothing would ever come of it, I knew—I don't think there was ever anyone but Jem for her."

Una nodded.  There hadn't been anyone but Jem for Faith, ever since her first glimpse of him at the Glen St. Mary's train station.  

"I wrote her sonnets but never gave them to her; I dreamed about her, waking and sleeping.  Una, did you ever love someone like that?"

Una decided that silence was the better part of discretion.  Walter, construing her silence as a negative response, continued.

"I always hoped that someday—maybe—somehow, she'd forget Jem and fall in love with me.  The first year of the War, when Jem and Jerry had enlisted and she and I were still at Redmond, we spent a lot of our time together, talking over the days ere the world turned upside down.  I didn't want anything to happen to Jem—he had always been my closest companion, different as we were—but sometimes I would pretend he didn't exist.  Those were golden hours, but like all golden hours, they came to an end."  He stood up, pacing back and forth across the small cabin, sure of his footing even with the rocking of the ship.

"When I was sent the white feather, Faith was more indignant than everyone.  How _dare people make fun of me like that?  But one night, going to visit her and Nan and Di at their boarding house, I overheard her say to them that while she understood that typhoid had made it impossible for me to be in the War, she was glad that her beau was the brother who was a soldier."  Pain flickered over Walter's face at the memory of almost twenty years before._

"Faith never was the most tactful person," Una murmured. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

"You're a comfort, Una," Walter told her.  "Do you know I've never told another living person all of this?  What is it about you, you strange, odd creature, that I can tell you things from the deepest recesses of my soul?"

Una smiled wanly.  "I'm glad.  But I'm tired now and must head for bed.  Good night."  

"Good night."

Una stood up and started to walk across the small cabin to her door when a larger wave than the rest rocked the ship, causing her to lose her balance.  Walter stepped in to catch her, holding her upright.  They were so close that she could see a faint scar on his cheek, a memento of Courcelette.  Una suddenly felt as if her knees had given out—_what was going on here?—and then, somehow, Walter's lips were on hers and she was kissing him back.  It was as if the entire universe was spinning and she was at its still center, the eye of the hurricane.  _

She went to slip her arms around his neck, but something on her finger was rubbing uncomfortably.  Realizing with a jolt that it was Shirley's ring, Una jerked herself away.  Aghast at her brazenness, she stared white-faced at Walter for several seconds, then practically ran through the connecting door between their cabins, slammed and locked it, flung herself down on her narrow bunk, and wept bitterly.

**Author's Note:  Thanks so much for all your reviews!  The poem quoted by Walter at the beginning of the chapter is "A Vagabond Song" by Bliss Carman.  Pat Gardiner also quotes from it in _Mistress Pat._**


	20. "This my Son"

**Chapter Twenty—"This my Son"**

The next morning, Una dreaded facing Walter again.  She had merely reminded him of Faith for some reason, she supposed.  He had been under considerable emotional stress over the past weeks; something had had to give somewhere.  And as for her own conduct—Una turned crimson, remembering how forward she had been—it must have been a temporary aberration.  Entering the dining room, she set her shoulders firmly and walked towards their table, ignoring the way her knees threatened to buckle under her once again.

"Good morning.  Did you sleep well?" Walter asked her, pulling out her chair.  His tone was completely matter-of-fact, and his face was unreadable.

Una mumbled something incoherent and sat down.

"I'm glad to hear it.  With all the excitement last night, I wondered how easily sleep would find you."

"Excitement?" Una blinked.  _That was not quite the word she would have used to describe the previous night._

"Yes, the storm, of course."

And neither of them mentioned the experience for the remainder of their journey.

*****************

As the train pulled into the Glen St. Mary's station on a bright autumn Sunday afternoon, Una sighed to herself.  It was hard to know if she wanted the last few weeks to end or not; they had been some of the most emotionally wearing of her entire life.  For that matter, the past year—starting with her father's death—had changed her life drastically.

Walter, hearing her sigh, smiled at her.  Una felt abashed.  Walter's life had changed so much more than hers.  She smiled back at him, hoping to ease his apprehensions about seeing his family.

"It'll be all right," she told him.  "You'll see."

They disembarked separately, not wishing to give the Glen gossips any more fodder than would already come soon enough.  Before she gathered her bags and hat from the facing seat, Una slipped off her engagement ring and placed it on a chain around her neck.  It was still too soon after her father's death for an "attachment" to be formed according to various members of the family, Shirley had written in the last letter she had received before boarding her homeward ship.  Although Una and Shirley had attempted to, if not keep it secret, to not draw attention to their engagement, Nan and Persis had somehow gotten wind of it and said that under no circumstances would there be a Christmas wedding.  _Hang propriety! Shirley had written.  __Unfortunately, if we did, the women-folk of this family would hang us.  So we won't mention it…and I suppose you'd better not wear the ring; the fact that you're not wearing mourning any more will cause enough talk.  Maybe by Christmas, when you come to visit Kingsport, you can wear it without all the hens of the family squawking.  I hope so, because I haven't seen it on you yet.  I hope the sapphire matches your eyes…that was my intent.  Una had had an unholy burst of laughter when Shirley described his sisters and sisters-in-law as "hens".  They really weren't, she knew, but since Shirley was younger than most of them, they had a tendency to try and dominate._

No one knew that Walter was coming home.  He and Una hadn't been able to figure out how to word a telegram in such a way that would answer all of the questions that would certainly be raised, so they had decided to just return to the Glen and face all queries there.

Sighing again, Una stepped off of the train.

***************

Declining a ride to Ingleside from a passing farmer, Una told the station-master that Jem or someone would call for her trunk the following day.  She slipped out of the village and down into Rainbow Valley, where Walter was waiting for her in the maple grove by the Glen Pond.  Fear showed on his face.

"You're sure that they won't be angry?" he asked.

"I think they'll only be all too happy to discover that you're alive," she told him solemnly.

Walter looked about him as if remembering a dream.  "The valley is even lovelier than it was when we were children.  Una, whatever else may come in our lives, you brought me home, and I thank you for that."  He held her hand as they walked through Anne Blythe's flower gardens up towards the house, gardens that still held traces of the past summer's glory and hints of the even more beautiful gardens they would be in the spring.

Una stuck her head through the kitchen door.  "No one's in here," she whispered to Walter.  "Come on in."

They softly made their way into the house.  Outside the half-open door to the living room, the only room of the house that appeared to have any activity in it, they stopped to listen to what was going on inside.  

Gilbert was reading aloud from the Bible to Jem and Faith's children, who were all half-heartedly listening.  Judging by the look on Meredith's face, Una thought, she was dreaming of running and screaming through Rainbow Valley…it was very reminiscent of Faith at the same age.  Jem was not in the room—most likely out on a case, Una supposed.  Anne and Susan were sitting in rockers on each side of the fireplace, while Faith sat between Matt and Meredith, trying to make them pay attention.

It was the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15 that Gilbert was reading aloud; the story of a son who squandered his inheritance and lived in exile in a far country for a long time, too ashamed and proud to go home.  "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants," Gilbert read.

"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.  And the son said unto him…"

"Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son," Walter said, stepping into the room.  Una stood outside, clutching the doorframe so hard that her nails were white. 

Gilbert looked up from his Bible at the dark-haired man in the room.  "What?  Who?  It isn't…"  

"Father!  Don't you know me?" Walter was shocked at how old his parents looked after seventeen years apart from them.

"_Walter!" cried Anne, her hands clasped over her heart.  Gilbert moved over to her, bending over her to make sure she was all right.  He looked up at Walter.  "Who…who are you?" he asked brokenly.  "You've alarmed my wife."_

"I'm your son, Walter Cuthbert Blythe."

"For mercy's sakes!" exclaimed Susan.  Young Walter, Matt, and Meredith all perked up.  This was one of the most eventful Sundays they could remember.  Faith just stared.

Walter dropped to his knees by Anne's chair.  "I know it sounds hard to believe, but I didn't die at Courcelette.  Through a horrible mix-up, I thought for years that you'd rejected me.  Una…Una found me and straightened things out.  I owe her so much.  Una?  Where are you?"

Una entered the room.  "Tell them…tell them I'm who I say I am!" Walter pleaded.  Rejection he had anticipated…the thought that they might not recognize him or be able to realize that he was alive had never occurred to him.

"It's Walter.  Truly, it is," she said calmly to Anne and Gilbert.  "It sounds preposterous at first, but he can explain."

Anne sank down into her chair.  "Walter…my son…"

Gilbert straightened up.  "Welcome home.  I don't know where you've been, but that doesn't matter."  He laughed joyously, as if years had been lifted from him.  "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!"  The two men embraced.

In all the commotion, Una found the chair tucked back in the corner that she had sat in at the reading of her father's will.  So much had happened since then!  "Lord," she whispered, "thank you.  Now I know why I received the legacy—to reunite Walter with his family.  Let him be happy.  Give him this second chance.  Amen."

From where he was talking with his parents, Walter looked over and smiled at her.  _"Thank you," he mouthed.  __"Thank you so much."_

**Author's Note:  As is cited in the text, the Scripture that Gilbert reads is from Luke 15.**


	21. Dan Reese Visits Ingleside

**Chapter Twenty-one—Dan Reese Visits Ingleside**

The entire Blythe household rejoiced at Walter's return.  Anne could barely allow him out of her sight the entire evening, while Susan cast rheumatism and Sunday tradition aside in order to mix up a batch of monkey-face cookies, Walter's childhood favorite.  Gilbert disappeared mysteriously for a while, only to come back with eyes that held traces of tears in them.  Knowing that the rest of the clan would want to know as soon as possible about it, Faith took it upon herself to call everyone.  Walt, Matt, and Meredith just stared.

Una attempted to help Susan seed raisins, but she couldn't keep her mind on her work.  A complete sense of relief permeated her entire being.  Walter's doubts about his reception had begun to seep into her mind during the journey home, but she was grateful that none of them had been fulfilled.

_Maybe now that we're home, things won't be quite so awkward between us, she thought.__  Ever since…ever since we kissed, there's been a constraint there.  It's to be expected, of course, but I don't think that we were ever completely at ease in each other's company for the rest of the journey.  We only talked about commonplace things…that, and his homecoming.  I wonder what he'll do now.  I suppose he doesn't know that himself. _

The kitchen door swung open to admit Jem.  "Una!  You're home!"  He caught sight of the cookie sheets.  "Cookies?  Susan, you shouldn't have!" he said, grabbing two.  "What's the occasion?  Una's homecoming?"

"They're for Walter," Susan said simply, wiping her floury hands on her apron.  "They're his favorite."

"I thought _Matt liked monkey-face cookies and Walt liked gingersnaps," Jem said, puzzled.  _

"Not Walt, _Walter," Susan attempted to explain.  "Your brother.  He's in the living-room with your parents."_

Jem raised his eyebrows at Una.  "Susan, are you feeling all right?  If you aren't feeling well, you should lie down and rest.  The cookies aren't that important."

"He really is here, Jem.  We…met in Europe.  It's a horrendously long story, but the gist of it is that he thought that we all had rejected him and so he stayed in Germany and France ever since the War.  The misunderstanding was cleared up, and he came back with me," Una told him.

Meredith burst into the room.  "Daddy, Daddy, Uncle Walter's alive!"

Jem sat down shakily on a kitchen chair.  "My brother."  He suddenly stood up and almost ran to the living-room.  "My brother!"  Una followed him just in time to see the two brothers embrace, both with tears in their eyes.

Faith peered over her shoulder.  "I can't believe it," she said softly.  "All these years…and we never knew.  I hardly know how to react, except to be joyful."  She looked curiously at her sister.  "Una—_how did you ever find him?"_

"I went to the cemetery at Courcelette…I thought it would be the right thing to do—to pay my last respects.  I fell and twisted my weak ankle.  Walter came to my aid.  We just started talking and all of a sudden, I knew who he was."

"I wonder what he'll do now," Faith mused.  "Walter had so much talent.  It would be a shame if all of it was wasted."

Una felt as if she were turned to stone.  Even though she knew that there was nothing behind Faith's words than sisterly concern, it sent a pang through her to hear Walter's name on her lips.

_But there's no reason for me to feel that way.  I'm just being silly, she thought to herself._

**************

Gilbert stood in the doorway of the room he and Anne had shared for so many years, watching her brush out her hair before going to bed.  Joy radiated from her face.

"Gilbert, I'm almost afraid to be this happy.  Ever since we thought Walter died, it was as though a piece of me was missing.  I grieved after Joyce's death, but I never _knew her.  I watched Walter grow up, which made the loss that much harder.  Now I want to dance and sing and be like a girl again!"_

"You've always been my Anne-girl."

"Do you think he's changed much, Gilbert?  I'm sure he must have…it's been so many years.  But I hope that the little boy who read me his poems is still in there.  I'm sure he is."

Gilbert said nothing, but came to her and kissed her.  He wasn't quite as sure.

************

Glen St. Mary's was in complete shock at the return of Walter Blythe.

"I never heard of such a thing in all my life," Mrs. Billy Shakespeare Drews, nee Sissy Flagg, said to Fannie Reese as they worked on Fannie's new crazy quilt.  "It almost seems unnatural."

Fannie was Jem's nurse, a brisk, practical woman.  "Odd, at the very least," she commented as she bit off a thread.

"And to think he actually _lived with those Germans for years!  Why, when you think of all the beastly things that they did in the War, it makes you wonder about his sanity.  He was always a little off in school, though.  There's some sort of new-fangled thing out there called brainwashing.  Do you think he was brainwashed?"_

Fannie decided it was time to throw in a higher authority.  "Young Dr. Blythe takes no stock in brainwashing," she said.  "He says that there are kind people in all parts of the world, even in Germany."  And she walked off—ostensibly to get refreshments for Sissy, but Sissy knew when she was being snubbed.

*************

Young Dr. Blythe was, at that moment, having a long-overdue conversation with his brother in the garret of Ingleside, where they had often played together.  Although Walter had been home for several days, this was the first chance that they had had to talk.  

"So it _was you that night."_

"Yes.  I thought you hated me."

"I hated the fact that my enemy looked like my brother.  And I hated war."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, merely enjoying each other's company in a way they hadn't been able to in years.

"So what do you plan to do now?" Jem asked.

"Honestly? I have no idea as of yet.  I worked partway to a BA at Redmond before the war, but I can't see myself going back and finishing it.  I'd be years older than any of the other students, and I fear I've lost my interest for such things.  Right now, I'm just trying to reacquaint myself with my family."  Walter stretched out on the floor, his back against an old chintz-covered sofa.

Jem was draped over Gilbert's favorite old blue chair, looking much closer to fourteen than forty.  "God bless Una for happening to come across your path.  As we used to say back in Rainbow Valley days, she's a brick.  I don't think anyone knows how to thank her enough."

"I certainly don't," Walter agreed.  "I feel as if she's given me my life back, though I don't know quite what to do with it yet."

"You could always marry and raise a family," Jem grinned.  "It's done wonders for me."  He looked at his brother more seriously.  "After we received word of your death, Mother was cleaning out your room and found a series of sonnets to 'Rosamond'.  She was pretty special to you, wasn't she?  I mean, you never mentioned her to me, so she would have had to be someone who meant a lot to you."

Walter merely nodded.

"Maybe you should look her up, see whatever happened to her.  You never know…she could still be waiting for you after all these years."

Walter stood up to go downstairs.  "She never knew," he replied almost bitterly.  "She's married now, but I never had a chance anyway."

***********

At the same time, Una and Faith were sitting on Hezekiah Pollock's tombstone in the old Methodist graveyard.  Faith studied her sister closely.

"You're different, Una," she finally said.  "Different in a good way, though.  It's not looks, exactly, but more your whole presence.  I think this trip was good for you; it seems to have given you a lot more self-confidence."

"I never thought of it that way."

"Well, you were on your own without any of us for several months.  You had to rely on yourself.  And then convincing Walter to come back home—well, I don't think anyone in the family has figured out how to tell you how grateful they are."

Una flushed.  Even though she knew that Faith only thought of Walter as a friend and brother, it still hurt to hear his name on her lips.  However, it hurt more to hear Faith's name on his lips.  But what was she thinking of?  There was no reason for her to care about Walter's feelings for Faith, no reason at all.

"So what are you going to do now?" Faith asked.  "I know that before you left, you said that when you returned you were planning to visit around for a while."

"That seems to be the most logical idea," Una told her.  "Since Rosemary's living with Norman and Ellen, I'll need to find some other abode.  Bruce will stay with them during the summers—did I tell you that he's planning to go to Redmond next fall?"

Faith grinned.  "No.  I told you.  You're flustered these days—must be all that traveling went to your head or something.  Or is it the thought of your eventual nuptials?"

Una turned an even deeper crimson.  Ignoring Faith's jibe, she continued.  "When Nan and Jerry came to see Walter earlier this week, they asked if I'd like to stay with them until about mid-December.  I think I'll do that and then go to Kingsport for Christmas to see Di and Philip and…Shirley."

Faith looked ready to insert a teasing comment when Meredith ran up.  "Mummy!  Aunt Una!  Mr. Reese is here, and he's saying _horrible things about Uncle Walter!"_

"Which Mr. Reese, dear?" Faith asked.

"Mr. Dan Reese.  He's calling Uncle Walter a Hun-lover and a yellow-bellied coward and…and…well, you washed out Walt's mouth with soap when he said this, so I'll just whisper it to you.  Is that all right, Mummy?"  Meredith looked more solemn than Una had ever seen her, but there was almost a twinkle in her eye in hopes of being allowed to say a forbidden word.

Faith soon squelched that notion.  "You don't need to repeat it to me, Meredith.  Some things are best left to the imagination.  Go play; Aunt Una and I will go back to the house and see what's going on."  As Meredith scampered off to find her brothers, Faith sighed.  "I hoped it wouldn't come to this.  Fannie told Jem—Fannie's a cousin of Dan's, you know—that she thought there might be trouble, especially because Walter beat Dan in that fight all those years ago.  The Glen prides itself on its patriotism, and some people find Walter's story a bit preposterous.  Right now, they tend to equate him with Whiskers-on-the-Moon."

"Surely you don't think that, do you, Faith?" Una asked as they crossed through Rainbow Valley to Ingleside.

"Of course not!  But I'm just telling you what's been said around the village."

The two women reached Ingleside in time to see Jem buttoning the cuffs of his sleeves.  "Dan Reese won't be saying anything more about my brother for a while," he told them.  "I gave him a piece of my mind and a piece of my fist."  

"And do you intend to do that to everyone who insults me?" Walter cried.  "You can't, Jem!"

"Why not?  I'm not about to let some…some…"

Faith coughed discreetly, perhaps trying to avert words being used that would have garnered a mouth-washing from any of the children.

"…some _person speak of my brother that way!"_

"So you're going to hit them all?" Walter asked sarcastically.  "That will do wonders for your medical practice, not to mention your family's reputation in the area."  He started to walk away.  "I've been fighting my own battles for years, Jem.  I'll handle it."

***********

Anne Blythe was enjoying the autumn evening by sitting with her husband on the verandah of Ingleside.  Gilbert's hand was in hers, her lost son had returned, and there were still late flowers in her garden.   _I'm a completely happy woman, she thought._

Gilbert was not quite as composed.  Although Anne only knew the basic story of Dan Reese's visit, he had seen the entire episode.  Although he abhorred what Dan had done, he didn't feel that he could condone Jem's behavior either, though he found it the less reprehensible of the two.  _It's like something Anne would have done, perhaps, he thought.  __Not a slate over the head, but along the same lines.  _

Walter came out of the house and sat down on the steps in front of them.

"I can't stay here," he said abruptly.

Anne was indignant.  "Of course you can!  Just because one person comes and says insulting things about you doesn't mean that you can't live here with us—this is your home.  Why, we haven't seen you in so long!  We've barely had a chance to catch up. You can't go again…so soon!"

"I have to, Mother," Walter said, looking up at her with eyes that pleaded for her understanding.  "It's not that I don't want to be here with you—I do, more than anything else.  But it will affect the rest of you—Dad and Jem's medical practice especially.  I can't do that to you all.  And the Glen isn't home anymore to me; it hasn't been for years.  I thought I could just pick up where I left off, but I can't.  Too many waves have rolled past Four Winds Light for that to happen."

Gilbert looked at his son with compassion and understanding.  "So what do you plan to do now?" he asked.  "Return to France?"

"No, I think that part of my life's behind me," Walter told him.  "I actually thought that I might go to Toronto for a while.  Rilla and Ken would be close by, and I could find work somewhere."

Anne's face was grey.  "Tell him it's all right to stay here, Gilbert.  Tell him!"  Her voice cracked, and there were tears in her eyes.  Had she found her son only to lose him again?

"He has to make this decision for himself, Anne-girl."

"It's not for forever, Mother.  I'll still come and visit…in all probability, so frequently that you'll beg me to stay away.  But I can't live here.  It's not just the people like Dan Reese.  It's the memories of things that were and things that could have been."

Anne shut her eyes against the pain, comparing the idealistic boy of yesteryear with the embittered man before her.  "I love you, Walter.  Do what you have to do, but remember that we love you."

Gilbert put his hand on Walter's shoulder.  "God go with you."

"He hasn't been with me in ages.  Why should He start now?" Walter asked cynically.  He walked off.

Anne started to follow him, but Gilbert held her back.

"There's nothing we can do for him, Anne-girl.  He'll have to get through this on his own."


	22. Dean Priest Again

**Chapter Twenty-two—Dean Priest Again**

"Una, can you run over to Shrewsbury for some pink thread?" Nan called from the upstairs landing of the Blair Water parsonage. "I was hoping to get Dianne's new dress done in time for Amy Mitchell's party on Saturday, but I'm out of thread."

Una sighed.  This was going to involve The Car—Una always referred to it in capitals—which had speedily become the bane of her existence in the three weeks she had been at Nan and Jerry's.  Jem had taught her to drive two years previously, but Una preferred to avoid being at the wheel of an automobile whenever possible—especially Jerry's, which seemed to have a mind of its own.

"Doesn't Blair's store carry pink thread?" she asked hopefully.

"I looked there when I started the dress," Nan told her.  "They don't have the right shade, and the quality's bad anyway.  Honestly, I'd go myself if I could—I know you aren't much for driving—but Blythe and John have been sick all day, and there's the Ladies' Aid meeting here tonight, and I promised Dianne she'd have the dress for Saturday…" Nan's voice trailed off.

Una was filled with compassion.  The lot of a minister's wife wasn't an easy one, but Nan was, as Jerry called her out of his parishioners' hearing, a true brick.  Her Martha-esque tendencies meant that she gave unstintingly of herself to everyone.  There was simply no money at the Blair Water manse for a hired girl, so Nan had run herself ragged until Una came.  "And you have a headache, don't you?" she asked Nan.

"I'm afraid so," Nan groaned.  "It's like a million little dwarves all pounding away with hammers at my skull."  She gave a weak smile.

"You go lie down for a while," Una told her.  "I'll start a batch of biscuits for the Aids and keep an ear out for Blythe and John.  When Dianne gets home from school, she can help you and I'll go into Shrewsbury."

"Bless you, Una," Nan smiled.  "I'll drag my weary bones to bed for a bit.  Whatever did I do without you?"

"Glad I can help," Una said sincerely.  As she mixed the biscuit dough, she was struck by how pleased she was to be useful once again.  Gallivanting all over Europe had been enjoyable, but it was good to be among her own people again.

Dianne came in excitedly, mindless of her normal nine-year-old dignity.  "Guess what, Aunt Una?  Mark Strang picked me for Clap-In and Clap-Out today!"  She giggled.

"That sounds like an important occurrence."  

"I know.  Bessie Tapley wanted him to pick her, but he said that I was the prettiest girl in Blair Water school, even if I'm only nine and he's eleven."  Dianne smiled so broadly her face threatened to split in half.

"Well, the prettiest girl in Blair Water school, can you help your mother out?  I'm supposed to drive into Shrewsbury to get some thread for your new dress."

"Oh, Aunt Una!" Dianne engulfed her aunt in an enormous embrace.  "You're…you're absolutely spiffy!"

"Spiffy, is it?" Una asked.  "Is this new phrase courtesy of Mark?"

Dianne blushed.  "I suppose.  Oh, I picked up the mail on the way home…there's three letters for you.  One from Aunt Persis, one from Uncle Shirley, and one from Uncle Walter."  She tossed the letters to Una as she headed up the stairs.  "You know, it's odd to have a live Uncle Walter.  He was always just a name, but now he's real."

************

Before heading to Shrewsbury, Una read her letters in the privacy of Jerry's car.  _Which one should I read first?  The one from Persis?  But then, should I read Walter's or Shirley's next?  I can't believe I'm debating with myself over which letter I should read second.  Shirley's, of course—he's my fiancé.  But since he's my fiancé, shouldn't I save his for last?  I can't believe it's taking me so much time to decide what order to read my mail in.  I'll just have to do what Di says her mother-in-law always did, and jab them with a hat pin._

Persis's letter was full of news of the Toronto family, written in her characteristic rambling style—how Rilla, expecting her sixth child, was faring; a description of the new curtains she had bought for the sitting-room; and the good grades that Cecilia had earned at St. Agatha's during the last term.  But what was this last bit of news?  "You used to know an Irene Howard, didn't you?  Carl says he remembers her slightly, although they were never more than nodding acquaintances.  Well, she was married to some man by the name of North who died a few years ago—after he died, she subsequently moved to Toronto.  She runs with the elites around Toronto, so of course I'd never met her, since they don't seem to find famous naturalists quite in their league.  But I'm digressing.  What I keep attempting to get to is that she and Walter have renewed their old friendship, and he's been escorting her to various events around Toronto.  Rilla isn't impressed in the slightest—she said that she 'got her craw full' of Irene back during the War and can't see why on earth Walter would pay her the slightest attention…" The letter continued on, but Una dropped it as if it were a hot coal.  So Walter was squiring Irene around Toronto!  She thought that he would have had more sense than that, but apparently his brain had been addled more than she had realized.

Delaying the inevitable, she opened Shirley's letter.  It was a typical letter from Shirley—interesting, humorous, with an occasional tender line snuck in unobtrusively.  Una felt regretful that she didn't have time to give it all the attention it deserved, but reminded herself that, fortunately, letters could be read and reread.

Walter's letter was opened with trembling fingers.  Would he mention Irene?  He did, but Una's fears were relieved.  "I've seen a bit of Irene Howard—Mrs. Geoff North, I suppose—since arriving in Toronto.  Una, she is the most malicious woman I have ever met.  I went with her to two parties—the first for old times' sake, the second because she told me she needed an escort.  She has nothing nice to say about anyone—when I mentioned you, all she said was that the two of you had barely spoken since you'd been unkind to her at some Sunday School concert years ago.  What nonsense!  Thank goodness you aren't like that."  The letter continued on, describing his life in Toronto and some of the struggles he had gone through attempting to put his life back together.  It concluded, "Una, what is it about you that makes me able to tell you what troubles me?  And I am troubled.  My life has changed so drastically that I hardly know how to stand up straight.  But I can tell you about it and know you'll understand, and I thank you for that."  

**********

The seven-mile drive to Shrewsbury gave Una ample time for reflection, but she didn't like what she was seeing.  If a woman was engaged, her fiancé's letter should be the one that she was most anxious to read.  Yet she had merely given Shirley's letter a cursory glance.  _I'm not in love with him.  He knows that.  I'm not even sure to what extent he's in love with me…more so than I am with him, though, I fear.  I love__ him, but that's different than being in love__ with him. _

_What sort of feelings do I have for Walter? she continued to herself on the drive home.  __I thought I loved him once, but I was only a girl then.  Besides, he was almost a different person then.  Almost.  I put all that behind me before I knew he was alive.  He's just my brother-in-law to be.  So why am I smitten with jealousy over Faith and Irene?  I don't think I want to try and answer that question…I'm afraid of what the answer would be.  Oh, there are days that I wish I could just not have any feelings at all!  Frustrated, Una turned a curve too sharply, sending The Car into a shallow ditch._

"Blast!" she muttered, immediately feeling shocked at herself for using such unladylike language.  The automobile was stuck—very much so, in fact.  It was late afternoon in the autumn, and few people used this lonely back road that she had taken as a shortcut.  Una settled in for a long wait.      

After about twenty minutes, however, she was surprised to see a buggy coming down the road.  It stopped when it saw her.

"Can I help you?" the driver asked.  He was around sixty, with silver-flecked dark hair.

"Only if you can pull the car out," Una told him wryly.  "It appears to be good and stuck."

"Well, I don't think that Beatrice here can do that, but I can give you a ride home.  Where do you live?"

"I'm staying at the Blair Water manse with the Rev. Meredith.  He's my brother."

The man leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at her in the fading daylight.  "Have I met you before?  I remember someone telling me once that they were related to the Rev. Meredith…"

Una gasped.  "I think we have met…in Venice!"

The man looked at her strangely.  "If it isn't the woman from the café!  I remember our conversation, but I'm afraid I don't remember your name."

"Una Meredith.  And you would be Dean Priest," she said slowly.  "This is _odd."_

"I'm inclined to agree," Dean said, helping her up into the buggy.  "Your brother or someone can come for the car tomorrow, I suppose?"  Without waiting for an answer, he continued on.  "What did we talk about anyway?  I remember the conversation as being rather peculiar, but I fear I've forgotten the details."

"We discovered that we were both Islanders, and you asked me about…about my engagement ring."

"I do remember now.  And I broke all rules of etiquette and told you about my hopeless passion for the love of my life." He laughed.  Una was struck by how much his laugh was reminiscent of Walter's—there was no humor in it.  Dean looked at her hand.  "You aren't wearing the ring now," he observed.

"My…my father…he died this past spring.  The family isn't sure if it's…appropriate right now," Una stammered.

"It seems that since it was all right to wear the ring in Europe, it would be all right here as well."

Una, having no answer, kept silent.  Dean was also silent for the remainder of the drive until they reached the manse.  "It's been a pleasure meeting you again, Miss Meredith.  I'll stop by and visit occasionally, if that's all right with you.  I'm staying with my sister in Shrewsbury, and there is only so much of her undiluted company that I can take at a time."

"That would be fine."

Dean helped her down from the buggy and drove off.  As Una walked towards the door, her fingers stroked the letters in her pocket.  _How does he do that…unwittingly touch on my sorest points?  I'm not sure that this will be a comfortable friendship.  ___


	23. "The Aftermath"

**Chapter Twenty-three—"The Aftermath"**

True to his word, Dean stopped by the following Saturday.  Una had been helping Nan bake pies when a knock came at the door.

"There's some man here to see you, Aunt Una," Dianne said primly but curiously.  Una hung up her apron and followed Dianne to the parlor, where Dean was smiling wryly.  

"I told you I'd visit, didn't I?" he asked.

Dianne decided to forget her manners.  "Who are you?"

"My name is Dean Priest.  I met your aunt in Europe, but I grew up around here—over in Priest Pond, to be precise."

Dianne smiled appreciatively over his use of alliteration.  "I think I might have heard of you.  Blythe—my little sister—has a friend named Juliet.  She just lives here in the summer.  Aren't you her uncle or something?"

Dean looked visibly taken aback.

"And she has a little sister Elizabeth…do you know who I'm talking about?"

"I think I do.  But they aren't my nieces.  I just was a friend of their parents' a long time ago."

"Oh, I see," Dianne replied, trying her hardest to appear grownup.  It wasn't often that visitors to the manse took the time to visit with her.  "It was an exceedingly great pleasure to meet you, sir," she said gravely.  Una rolled her eyes.

"And for me as well, ma'am."  Dean bowed with equal gravity as Dianne left the room.  Then he half-laughed, half-groaned.  "Amazing, how easy it is for children, although completely oblivious to your past, to find the deepest hurts of your life."

Una thought privately that his description could apply to himself as well.  "What do you mean?" she asked.

"When I first met you, I was about to travel back to the island to revisit the only woman I ever loved…and her husband and children.  Those children were the ones that your charming niece was referring to."

"Oh," Una said flatly.  She decided to venture a question.  "How…how was your visit?"

"Well, I found out that I couldn't go back.  I saw Star, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done—and the most profitable.  It helped me realize that what I felt for her was gone, leaving room for a friendship.  But I don't regret having loved her—only not having loved her enough to treat her with honesty.  But that's another tale."

Una felt as if she should be embarrassed.  Here she was, a spinster in her thirties, while an old bachelor almost twice her age was confiding in her about his love affairs.  She hoped that Nan would refrain from entering the room while Dean spoke—how _would she explain it?_

Dean looked at her oddly.  "Strange woman!  Why am I telling you all of this?  Do people often use you as a confidant?"

"Sometimes, I suppose."

"Well, I've shared enough of my soul for one day—and I don't see you returning any confidences.  A more innocuous topic is needed—what do you think about Irving's _The Alhambra?"_

*************

_(Extract from a letter written by Shirley Blythe, Asst. Professor of Mathematics at Redmond College, Kingsport to Una Meredith, Blair Water, P.E.I) _

"Una, my dear—I've found a house for us!  (I didn't mean to begin my letter so precipitately—I apologize.  I _was going to start out asking about how you were doing, and some dull comments about the weather we've had here, and what peccadilloes my students have been up to—but then I just couldn't wait to tell you that I've found a house.)  It's—no, I won't describe it to you.  I'll wait and show you at Christmas.  Words aren't my gift, and you'd most likely get a completely wrong impression of it, which would be a shame—it's a quaint little house that needs to be lived in.  Not an Ingleside sort of house—more of a House of Dreams sort.  But that's what it will be, dear—our own House of Dreams… (__Several paragraphs omitted, Shirley apparently overcoming his lack of eloquent words.)  _

"I look forward to your next letter—and I don't want to hear about all the canning Nan did, or what Jerry's parishioners have complained about—I want to hear about _you.  What you're doing, what you're thinking, what you're dreaming about.  You've seemed so distant, ever since you've come back to Canada—funny, since you're infinitely closer."_

***********

Dean continued to visit the Blair Water manse on a regular basis.  Nan thought that he was one of the oddest friends Una had ever had, but opted not to tell her that; Jerry, when he noticed Dean, greeted him cordially; Dianne, Blythe, and John surveyed him with awe, since he treated them the same as he did adults.

Una hardly knew what to think of Dean.  She had never had a friendship with a man who wasn't part of the Blythe-Meredith-Ford clan.  Friendship with Dean was like drinking a glass of Mrs. Blythe's lemonade; it tasted good, but there was always a tang about it that she wasn't sure if she cared for or not.  He was so _bitter at times.  She knew that Blair Water gossip speculated that Dean Priest had finally gotten past his jilting by Emily Starr all those years ago and was looking, at long last, to marry—Una found this highly amusing…and unlikely.  Firstly, she was engaged.  Secondly, Dean was almost thirty years older than she was.  He was merely a safe confident for her—someone that she could ask questions (being deliberately vague about the situations involved) without having to worry that he would be able to put two and two together and get four._

"Can you _make yourself love someone or not love someone?" Una asked one day.  It seemed an odd question to ask, but the arrival of Shirley's letter the preceding evening—had brought it to the forefront of her mind._

If Dean wondered what had possessed her to ask, he didn't mention it.  "I couldn't.  Years ago, on one of my first trips to Europe, a girl asked me to marry her.  She was a wonderful, talented creature—but I didn't love her.  And I couldn't force myself to stop loving Star, either, once I met her.  I had to grow past it.  But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd married the first girl.  I would have been spared the sorrow—but would I ever have known the joy?"  His voice drifted off.

Una felt rather shocked.  The idea of a woman proposing to a man seemed somewhat forward and unseemly.  

"I'm not expecting an answer," Dean said hurriedly.  "There isn't one, as far as I know.  It was purely a rhetorical question.  But why did you ask?"

"It was purely a rhetorical question," Una answered, deliberately choosing to be untruthful.

"Ah.  I see."

***********

_(Extract from a letter written by Walter Blythe, Toronto, Ontario to Una Meredith, Blair Water, P.E.I.)_

"…I wrote a poem today—a copy's enclosed for you, if you care to read it.  I hadn't written anything in years—not since 'The Piper'.  I'd almost forgotten how to write poetry.  But a dream I had last night reminded me of an incident during the War.  It's a bloody poem, I suppose, but war is bloody as well.  I never bayoneted anyone, though—but I saw it happen many times."

Una put down the letter, gazing out unseeing at the wild November night.  She was half afraid to read the poem.  Her hands trembled as she picked up the last sheet of paper from the table and began to read.

_"Yesterday we were young who now are old…_

_      We fought hot-hearted under a sweet sky,_

_The lust of blood made even cowards bold,_

_      And no one feared to die;_

_We were all drunken with a horrid joy,_

_      We laughed as devils laugh from hell released,_

_And, when the moon rose redly in the east,_

_      I killed a stripling boy!_

_"He might have been my brother slim and fair—_

_      I killed him horribly and I was glad,_

_It pleased me much to see his dabbled hair,_

_      The pale and pretty lad!_

_I waved my bayonet aloft in glee—_

_      He writhed there like a worm, and all around_

_Dead men were scattered o'er the reeking ground._

_      Ours was the victory!_

_"Now we are old who yesterday were young_

_      And cannot see the beauty of the skies,_

_For we have gazed the pits of hell among_

_      And they have scorched our eyes._

_The dead are happier than we who live,_

_      For, dying, they have purged our memory thus_

_And won forgetfulness; but what to us_

_      Can such oblivion give?_

"We must remember always; _evermore_

_      Must spring be hateful and the dawn a shame._

_We shall not sleep as we have slept before_

_      That withering blast of flame._

_The wind has voices that may not be stilled._

_      The wind that yester morning was so blithe—_

_And everywhere I look I see him writhe,_

_      That pretty boy I killed!"_

Una shuddered.  _"The wind has voices that may not be stilled…"  She could hear those voices from where she was sitting, voices that spoke of horrors beyond her imaginings—war and all its blood and terror.  The poem was stark and ugly—but Walter had been able to write poetry for the first time in years.  Healing was beginning.  And he had sent the poem to __her.  Why?_

"There's a sort of bond between us," she whispered.  "I don't know what it is—but there is something.  Do I love him?  _Dare I love him, with no hope of him ever returning that love?"  _

But the wind gave no answers.

**Author's Note:  The poem that Walter sends to Una is entitled "The Aftermath" and was written by L. M. Montgomery.**


	24. Faith, Hope, and Love

**Chapter Twenty-four—Faith, Hope, and Love**

The remainder of her sojourn in Blair Water passed quickly for Una.  Before she knew it, it was mid-December and time to pay her promised visit to Di and Philip and Shirley.  

Una was relieved when the day of her departure finally arrived.  Three o'clock in the morning was beginning to be all too familiar of an hour—the white nights when she stared out the window for hours, wondering if marrying Shirley was the right choice.  Perhaps love was more of a requirement for marriage than she had once thought.  But what options were there for her if she didn't marry?  It wasn't as if there was—anyone—else who would want to marry her.  She wanted more of an existence than to spend the rest of her life as "Aunt Una".  

Dean came to the manse to wish her well with her visit. "This is goodbye, then," he said as he put on his hat and walked towards the door.  "I'll be off on my travels after the first of the year.  It's been good to know you, ma'am.  As I said before, may the Fates treat you kindly."  He started to leave, but turned back with a mocking grin.  "Or at least more kindly then they've treated me."   Without giving her a chance to reply, he left.  Una shook her head.  _He's been the oddest friend I ever had.  I hope he can learn to be happy eventually._

**************

Shirley met the train in Kingsport with his dilapidated black Ford, Queen Elizabeth.  "She seemed to have reservations about being dubbed 'Lizzie'," he explained, "so I had to look for a more sophisticated moniker."

Una laughed and asked how his students had ended their term.

"The ones who deserved to pass did and the ones who didn't mostly squeaked by as well.  I've had a couple of very talented co-eds who came up with some equations that stumped even me.  Fortunately, they're going on to Professor Arch next term, and he will be much more capable of dealing with their queries." 

"You look tired," Una said after an awkward pause during which neither seemed to know what to say to the other.

"I _am tired.  In addition to the classes I've been teaching, I'm trying to finish my own studying to become a full professor.  I should be able to wrap that up by April or May—maybe June.  Then we could get married and I'd have the summer free for us to spend together.  I suppose that Europe wouldn't be where you'd want to go on a honeymoon, since you just returned from there, but we could go out West, if you wanted."_

"That's always a possibility," Una said hesitantly.  Shirley was such a dear—why couldn't she love him?  Or did she love him and just not realize it?

"We can plan all of that later, when we get the chance.  This vacation is going to be busy—Di is already happily frazzled with cleaning and baking, you're here now, and Walter will be stopping here on his way to Glen St. Mary's for Christmas.  I'm glad.  None of us in the Kingsport branch here have had a chance to see him yet."  Shirley sighed.  "My brother.  I'm still in shock, I guess.  We weren't overly close as children—not like he and Jem were, but it devastated me when we heard that he died.  All my time over in Europe, I kept thinking, 'My brother was here.  Maybe if I'd been able to come earlier, I could have saved him.'  I blamed myself for being too young—the week after I turned eighteen, I signed up.  I wanted to take Walter's place, to fight the fight he couldn't finish."

Una slid over into the middle seat and comfortingly touched Shirley's arm.  "You did what you could."

"Thank you."  Shirley smiled at her.

"When will Walter be here?"

"I think he's coming tomorrow—he can only stay overnight.  I thought that the three of us could go for a sleigh ride or something, if you don't mind.  I didn't think that you would, since you became such close friends while you were in France."  

Una looked at him curiously, but he seemed to be sincere in what he said, with no hint of malice or innuendo.  And why would there be?  It wasn't as if much of anything had happened, and as for what had happened, neither she nor Walter had had any desire to speak of it.  As far as Shirley was concerned, he was pleased that his brother and his fiancée were friends.  All the same, Una wasn't certain that a sleigh ride—or anything involving both Shirley and Walter—would be a comfortable excursion.

************

The next morning, Una was back at the train station along with Shirley, Di, and Philip, trying to remind herself that there was no need to be nervous.

"Train's running late today," Shirley commented laconically.  Una could feel her heart pounding.  Nothing had happened to the train, of course…it was just late.  That was all.

"No more so than usual," Philip disagreed.  He slipped his arm around Di, who was about to cry.  "What's wrong, Diana?"

"Oh, I just can't believe that this is happening!  Walter was always my favorite brother, and now to find out that he's alive!"  She blushed, realizing that she sounded tactless.  "I'm sorry, Shirley—I didn't mean to offend…"

"No offense taken whatsoever."  Shirley looked at Una as if he wouldn't mind_ his arm around __her shoulders, but Una gave no sign of response.  "It's fine, Di—I've got my own girl to appreciate me!"  Una smiled weakly, but was spared having to come up with a witty comment with the arrival of the train._

Various people disembarked, but Una barely saw them.  Her eyes were fixed on the dark-haired man looking around hesitantly for siblings he hadn't seen in years.

"Do you see him?" Di asked, pulling on the dark green sleeve of Una's winter coat.

"He's right over there…in the grey hat."

"Walter!  Walter Blythe!" Di practically shouted, disregarding the crowded station.  "We're over here, Walter!"  He saw her and walked toward them cautiously, as if unsure of his reception.

Di flung her arms around her brother, almost knocking him over.  "It's been so long," she murmured through her tears.  "How could you let us think you were dead?"

"I'm sorry, Di…" Walter tried to say.

"Never you mind now," Di interrupted.  "You're here, and that's what matters."  She pulled Shirley over to them.  "Hasn't he grown?" she teased, trying to lighten the moment.  "You haven't seen him since he was at Queen's.  Now he has an Assistant Professorship, a fiancée—never thought he'd turn out this well, did you?  I sure didn't."

The brothers clasped hands, unsure of what to do.  Shirley didn't have Di's exuberance, and Walter was too struck by the change the years had brought to his brother and sister to say much.

"I'm glad to see you," Shirley said quietly yet sincerely.

"I'm glad to see you, too," Walter replied.

"And this is my husband, Philip Blake," Di said, turning to him.  Philip, who had stepped aside to let Di have her reunion, came forward, smiling.

"I think we might have met once or twice as children when Mother and Dad came to visit your parents," he said.  "You certainly have made Diana happy by your resurrection, so how can I be less than pleased to see you?"

Walter smiled.  "It's a pleasure to meet you again."  He looked past Philip.  "Una!"  Stepping forward, he took both of her hands in his and looked down at her face, which she was fighting hard to keep devoid of the strange joy she felt at seeing him again.  "I didn't know if our visits would overlap, but I hoped they would.  It's good to see you—I can't even tell you how much."

"It's good to see you as well," Una replied softly, conscious of the pressure of his hands.  _What I'm feeling now—is this love?_

*************

As they sat around the fireplace in the Blakes' living room that evening, the conversation turned toward what Walter was going to do.

"I've been doing some odd jobs for one of the smaller Toronto papers that a friend of Ken's edits—setting type, doing some of the behind-the-scenes work for a few of the articles," Walter told them.

"Do you like it?" Philip asked.  "I mean, is it anything that you'd want to do for the rest of your life?"

"I'm not sure.  It's not difficult, and I like the people I work with.  It's certainly not the type of writing I'd always wanted to do when I was younger, but I was young and full of dreams then."

Shirley leaned forward out of the depths of Di's old blue chair.  "Have you thought about going back to college and finishing your degree?"

"The thought's crossed my mind, but I don't think I will.  I've moved past that part of my life."  Walter grinned at his younger brother.  "Besides, one professor is more than enough for the family."

Shirley smiled wryly.  "I'm not a full professor yet."

"You need a wife, Walter," Di spoke up in a teasing voice, looking up from the scarf she was knitting Shirley.  

"Why would that be?" Walter asked her.

"Because you look lonely.  Doesn't he, Una?"

Una found herself caught off guard without a chance to dissemble.  "He does."

"Lonely or not," Walter told his sister, "I only know of one woman in the world I'd marry—and she's already taken."  An awkward silence filled the room.  _He must be thinking of Faith, Una thought.  __Will that hurt never fade?_

"It's a pity you don't have any more sisters, Una," Di said lightly, trying to dispel the tension in the room.  "We appear to run out of Merediths for the Blythe men to marry.  And they've had such good fortune, too.  It really is a pity."

Una looked at Walter.  His face appeared to be set in stone.  She couldn't think of a worse thing for Di to have said.  Why, oh why, had this topic even had to be started in the first place?

"There's nothing wrong with marrying someone who's not a Meredith—or a Ford for that matter—is there, Diana?" Philip teased.

"I wouldn't trade you for a million of anyone else," Di told him.  "But my mother's proclivity for matchmaking is going to have the better of me yet."

Walter rolled his eyes.  "That's quite all right, Di.  I'm a grown man.  I can take care of myself."

"Be as that may," Shirley said with the air of a man imparting wisdom, "the women in this family will never believe that."

************

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, albeit cold.  Una, who had prayed for a blizzard in order to escape Shirley's notion of going for a sleigh ride, was bitterly disappointed.  Although the ground was covered in a soft blanket of snow, the old woman in the sky had apparently decided not to air out her featherbeds that day.  So Una found herself tucked snugly between Walter and Shirley, skimming over the streets of Kingsport.

The brothers chatted amiably about what was happening in their respective lives, giving Una an ideal opportunity to observe and contrast them.  Shirley, with his tousled brown hair and quiet grin, was the more boyish in appearance of the two, to be sure, but there was a serious, scholarly side to him as well.  He was comfortable to be around.  Walter, on the other hand, wasn't especially comfortable to be around.  He was as handsome as ever, with dark hair—now flecked with silver—and grey eyes that seemed to deny any curious person access to his soul.  But there was a softening about him that Una noticed.  The bitterness that he had carried so long had begun to fade away, and in its place was a glimmer of hope.

Hope.  The word caught Una by surprise.  For so many years, she'd "kept faith," trying to do her best in a world that seemed bleak and empty.   Now, she hoped for good things to come.  _Faith, hope, and charity—but the greatest of these is charity, or love, she thought, remembering back to Sunday school.  The context of the verse was different, but Una tried to tie it in with her situation anyway.  __Faith I've had; hope I have now—but love?  I've come this far—would I be doing myself a wrong to give up on love?  I don't love Shirley—not in the right way.  I don't think I love Walter, either—at least, not as I once did—but whatever it is that I feel for him goes deeper than what I feel for Shirley._

"Una?  Were you even listening?" Shirley asked, elbowing her in the side.

Una jumped.  "Apparently not—what did you say?"

"I was telling Walter that he'll have to come visit us for next Christmas.  Don't you agree?"

"I suppose so," Una answered.  But she had made up her mind.  Even if she died an old maid, even if she ever managed to sort out her feelings for Walter, she wasn't going to marry Shirley.  Now, the only problem was going to be telling him that without hurting him as dreadfully as she feared she would.


	25. "Greensleeves"

**Chapter Twenty-five—"Greensleeves"**

Christmas morning dawned crisp and white as Una pulled back the curtains of Di's guest room and looked out at the snow-covered lawn.  _Today's the day, I suppose.  It's already been a week.  I can't put off telling Shirley that I can't marry him any longer.  But I'll wait a while.  I don't want to spoil Christmas morning._

She crawled out of bed, shivering in the cold room as she dressed hurriedly in a green and red plaid dress that Nan had made for her as an early Christmas gift.  Remembering all the family members that were so far away, Una whispered a quick prayer for them as she descended the stairs to the kitchen.

Di was there already, which surprised Una, since it was still quite early.  They had decided not to open presents until Shirley came over from his rooms at the college later on that morning.

"Up so early?" Una asked with a smile.  "You informed me on my first night here that _no one in this family got up at the unearthly hour of 6:30 and that I wasn't supposed to either."_

"I wanted to get the turkey stuffed," Di told her.  "Besides, I was remembering all the Christmases at home growing up.  They were wonderful occasions, even the year we had Father's Aunt Mary Maria.  I swore on my favorite doll that I would _never be like her, no matter how old I grew.  And I do feel old today.  There should be children around on Christmas morning…"  A wistful look crept over her face._

Una looked at her friend sympathetically.  After eight years of marriage, Di and Philip still had no children, while all the rest of the married members of the clan did.  "Perhaps someday…" she murmured awkwardly.

"It's all right, Una," Di said, tossing her red curls—cut in a short bob that none of the rest of the family would have dared—back from her face.  "Could you make the crust for the mince pie?"

*************

Upon Shirley's arrival at eleven o'clock, the family commenced to open their gifts.  Over the past few weeks, packages had arrived from various provinces in the Dominion for them all—everyone had more than they ever could have deemed necessary.

Una flushed slightly as she opened her package from Walter, not knowing what he would have seen fit to send her.  She was surprised to find a delicate pin in the shape of a pale pink tea rose.

"That's lovely," Di told her.  "Why don't you wear it today?"

"It won't match my dress…"

Di looked at her oddly.  "It's beautiful.  No one cares if you match or not.  Right, fellows?"

"Of course not," Shirley said, the scarf that Una had knitted for him wrapped around his neck.  "That was thoughtful of Walter to send you something."

Di grimaced.  "Yes, and I wish he'd put a bit more thought into _my gift.  A very well-stocked first-aid kit."_

Philip's eyes twinkled.  "I think I'm to blame for that one, Diana.  I was telling him about how you used to teach nursing at Redmond and how we met that summer when I broke my leg at Prospect Point.  Perhaps he thought you'd run out of supplies since then."

"Humph!" was Di's only audible comment, but she bent down to where Philip was sitting at her feet and whispered, "Very kind of you, I'm sure."

While everyone else continued to open their packages, Una touched her pin with wondering fingers, her cheeks the same pale pink as the petals.  _I didn't send him anything.  I had no reason to…_

**********

After a dinner of roast turkey, mince pie, and various other indigestible but delicious foods, Shirley attempted to coerce Una to go for a walk with him through the park.  "I haven't given you my present yet, you know," he said.

"I should really stay and help Di with the dishes," Una protested.

"Oh, go do your courting!" Di laughed, threatening her with a dishtowel.  "Philip will help me with the dishes."

Una tried to argue, but the odds were against her.  Before she knew it, she was in her green coat and walking hand in hand with Shirley through the streets of Kingsport.  As was their nature, neither said much, for which Una was grateful.  She wasn't going to marry Shirley—that much she had decided.  But how to tell him that was an entirely different matter.

They meandered through the park, silently admiring the snow-covered city on their left, the sparkling harbour on the right with the sun shining on the ice, and William's Island before them, strong and impenetrable as it had always been.  But then Shirley turned towards the little pine-fringed hill on the left.

"I want to show you the house I found, Una," he said.  An undercurrent of excitement ran through his voice.  "It's on Spofford Avenue—from what I've heard, Spofford Avenue was once the elite stretch of road in Kingsport forty-odd years ago.  Every tobacco baron and lumber king built his house there.  Now it's just a jumble of houses reliving past glories.  But this house has been there longer than that.  It's a jewel of a place—simply made for us."

"It sounds very nice."

"It is," Shirley told her as they walked up the road towards Spofford Avenue.  "My mother, Philip's mother, and some of their friends lived on Spofford Avenue when they went to college here.  I like to think that it was this house, but I have no way of knowing for sure.  I should ask Mother some time."  Just as the road they were on turned into Spofford Avenue, he turned in at a dilapidated gate in front of a little frame house that had once been white.  A sign had once been painted over the archway over the gate, but the paint had worn off so that it could no longer be read.

"It'll need a lot of work, I expect," Shirley said apologetically.  "No one's lived here for several years, not since the last owner died.  She left it to the college—I'm not sure what she thought they would do with it, and they weren't sure either.  I can get it pretty cheaply if you like it."

_Like it?  Everything in Una's heart went out to the little forlorn house.  It needed to be loved, to be fixed up.  "It's lovely, Shirley."_

Shirley grinned with pleasure.  "I'll show you the inside.  It _used to be lovely, but time and mice have taken over."_

They went through the front door directly into a large living room with a fireplace.  Una could see another door opening into the pines and, in one corner, a staircase going up with a window seat at the first low turn.

"There's no furniture, of course.  Miss Maria—they say that was her name—left all the furniture to her church.  I don't know what they did with it.  At any rate, it wouldn't have survived this long in the house without proper care."

"What other rooms are there?" Una asked eagerly.  A house of her own—a house that needed love and care.  What more could she ask?

"There's a kitchen and a bedroom down here, and one large and two small rooms upstairs.  Not a big house, but I think it would suit us admirably."

Una poured over every nook and cranny of the house.  It was really the most darling place.  And they could fix it up so easily.  The room upstairs with the diamond-paned window only needed a new coat of wallpaper—and she could see that it had once been blue, which suited the room—to make it into a perfect guest room.  And white ruffled curtains for the kitchen, with pale yellow walls—or would red and white curtains with white walls be better?  No, that would show spots too much for a kitchen.

"Come back, Una.  You're a million miles away in a jar of wallpaper paste," Shirley teased, touching her lightly on the shoulder.  "I want to show you the apple orchard out back."

"There's an orchard, too?" Una asked in amazement.  "What doesn't this place have?"

"A chicken coop," Shirley said dryly, "and we're not installing one.  I have no desire to be awakened every morning by a cantankerous rooster."  They walked out into the orchard and sat down on a large grey boulder that Shirley dusted the snow off of.

There was a comfortable silence as they sat there, and suddenly Shirley laughed.  "We pass the test, I see.  What's the saying?  'If you can sit in silence with another person for half an hour and be comfortable, you can be friends.  If not, don't waste your time trying.'  Well, we haven't reached the half-hour mark yet, but it'll be dark soon."  He stood up and caught her hands to pull her up into a kiss.

Una forced herself to not be pulled in.  She suddenly felt as if she were drowning in icy water.  What was she doing?  

Apparently, Shirley was wondering the same thing.  "Una, what's wrong?"  He looked at her puzzledly.  "Why won't you let me kiss you?"  He paused, thinking.  "I don't think you've ever let me kiss you."

Una's breath was coming out in ragged gasps.  "I…can't…marry you.  I thought…I could.  I really…thought I could.  But—but I…can't."

"_What?!"_

"I—I don't love you."

"I knew that.  But it never seemed to make a difference before."  Shirley's face looked old in the late afternoon light.

"It does, though.  I'm sorry."  She laid her hand gently on his arm, wishing that she could take back her words, wishing that she could comfort him somehow.

"There's someone else, isn't there?" he asked after what seemed to be an eternal silence—this one not comforting at all.

Una said nothing, hoping that her face would not betray her.  Apparently, it gave away enough that Shirley was able to come to a conclusion.

"I wish you'd never gone to Europe!" he snapped, pressed beyond all endurance.  "Or at least that we'd gotten married before you went and had gone together."

That, as Susan Baker would have said, "got her dander up".  Una's eyes flashed.  "I will never regret going on that trip!"

"But he doesn't even love you!  And he sounds so…so bitter!"

"What business is it of yours?"

"None, I suppose, except that I care for you and don't want you to get hurt," Shirley said more quietly.  "He's too old for you, anyway."

Una almost went into hysterical laughter at that point.  "What on earth do you mean?  He's no more older than me than I am than you!"

Shirley looked confused.  "But you said he was.  You said that he was almost sixty."

"_What?"  Illumination dawned over Una's face.  "You thought I meant __Dean Priest? That I love __him?"_

"Don't you?  You wrote about him in almost all of your letters while you were staying in Blair Water."

"No, I don't love Dean Priest!  He's ages too old for me, and I'd never fall in love with him anyway."

"Then—"  An odd look was in Shirley's eyes that combined anger and hurt, a look reminiscent of Walter's when he had told her about Faith.  Una couldn't tell if he knew her secret or not, but she wasn't about to ask.

"Shirley, I don't want to discuss it any more.  I though I could marry you.  I can't.  I'm sorry…"  Una slipped off the sapphire ring—no longer a fetter!—and forced it into his clenched fist.  "You know, the first time I met Dean, he wished that this ring would bring me happiness," she said bitterly.  "He was wrong.  It's brought me nothing but trouble and hurt."  As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them—but there was no retraction possible.

"God go with you, Una.  You know I love you.  We can still be friends, I hope.  At any rate, we're family, which will keep us on amiable terms, I hope."

Una almost gave in at that point.  It would be so easy to marry Shirley, rather than to be on her own for the foreseeable future.  But she couldn't.  "Someday you'll find the person who can make you happy," she whispered.  "I only pray that I will as well."

"Can you find your way back to Di and Philip's?" he asked.  "I want to make sure all the doors are locked before I head out, and I don't think I'll join you for supper.  Give Di my regrets and say that I had no desire for left-over turkey."  A ghost of his old smile flickered over his face.

"Goodbye, Shirley."  Tears were welling up in her eyes.

"Goodbye, Una."  He watched her walk away into the park in her neat green coat and jaunty cap.  The bells in a nearby church began to play an old Christmas carol—"What Child is This".  But the words running through Shirley's head were of a different song set to the same tune.

_"Alas, my love, you do me wrong,_

_To cast me off discourteously.___

_For I have loved you oh, so long,_

_Delighting in your company.___

_Greensleeves was all my joy,_

_And, oh, Greensleeves was my delight._

_Greensleeves was my heart of gold,_

_And who but my lady Greensleeves?"_


	26. Home Again

**Chapter Twenty-six—Home Again**

In retrospect, Una could never figure out just how she had managed to survive the remaining week of her visit with Di and Philip.  It was an extremely awkward situation; after all, she had broken off her engagement with Di's brother.  Not that Di knew that—Shirley had simply told her that they had decided it wouldn't work out and left it at that, for which Una was grateful.  

She hadn't actually seen Shirley since she'd returned his ring; in fact, she hadn't seen much of anyone.  Di seemed almost to tiptoe around her, alternating between saying "It's probably for the best, I suppose," and "I wish it could have worked for you," until Una fled to the Old St. John's Cemetery for solitude.  Philip didn't say anything, but Una wondered how much he knew of what had been going on during her visit—he was a very perceptive individual.

On her last night in Kingsport, Di came into her room as she was brushing her long black hair the requisite one hundred strokes.  Di appeared to be very nervous, pleating her green skirt in her hands as she perched on the foot of Una's bed.

"Una…I don't understand what went wrong between you and Shirley.  I don't think I even want to know.  But you're still my friend, and you're still family.  I just want you to know…well, if things are awkward in the Glen with the rest of the family, I support the decision that the two of you made.  And so does Philip."

Una smiled at Di.  "Thank you so much," she said softly.

"For what it's worth, Philip thinks you made the right decision.  I don't know…I have one brother is very happy married to the woman he loves and one brother—well, I don't know what Walter wants out of life.  Apparently nothing he can get.  I was hoping that you and Shirley were destined for happiness, but if you aren't right for each other, then it's just as well you aren't going to marry."

Una looked apologetically at her hairbrush.  There was nothing she could say to Di; after all, it wasn't good form to confess to a woman that not only had she jilted one of her brothers, she harbored feelings towards another one of them.

"I'm babbling, I know, but I wanted to tell you that."  Di gave Una a half-hesitant embrace and fled the room.

"What a dear," Una sighed.  "Now, if the rest of the clan attempts to be half as kind…"

**********

 And, for the most part, they were.  They didn't understand—after all, it had seemed that Shirley had finally found his ideal woman and it was high time that Una had someone to appreciate her as she deserved—but they were kind.  At times _too kind, Una thought.  Everything from Jem's rough hug when she stepped off of the train to Rosemary's insistence that she looked too thin and needed to eat more seemed almost unnatural.  The family had always loved her, but now they saw her as a broken-hearted woman who needed to be treated delicately.  Una felt stifled in their love, which made her feel horribly guilty.  When a letter from Valancy Redfern came in late January, inviting her to come to Toronto for a visit of at least three weeks, Una pounced upon the idea._

"I'll be able to visit Carl and Persis and Rilla and Ken while I'm there, hopefully—I haven't seen any of them since before I left for Europe," she told Faith persuasively.  "And none of us have seen little Leslie." 

Leslie Anne Ford, the newest member of the clan, had been born on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night, causing Owen, who had formerly been the youngest to ask his father, "If she just showed up last night, does that mean that Santa Claus didn't know about her?  Will I have to share my presents?"  Ken had reassured him that it wasn't necessary, Rilla had written, but Owen was still unsure whether or not the interloper in the family was a good idea or not.

Faith was easily convinced that Una's visit to Toronto would be a good idea; perhaps she no longer knew what to say to a sister who she had always been close to.  For her own part, Una felt safe in her decision.  True, Walter lived in Toronto.  But Rilla had written that he would be spending a few weeks in Ottawa, attempting to prove his existence and untangle his legal status.  By the time he returned, she and the Redferns would be in the wilds of Mistawis, visiting a sort of cabin or something that they owned on an island "up back".  Valancy had called it her Blue Castle, but Una wasn't quite sure what she meant by that.  She supposed she'd find out.

Walter…she had heard nothing from him since his visit to Kingsport at Christmas—not even an acknowledgement of the stiff little thank-you she had written for the pin.  No letters came from Shirley anymore, of course, but she had hoped, perhaps too much, that Walter would write her.  There was no reason for him to stop, unless he had heard that her engagement to Shirley was off and he held it against her.  _Why didn't he write?  Una sighed._

**********

Una's remaining week in Glen St. Mary's passed almost without any awkward incidents until the day before her departure, when Susan, who had been laid up in bed with a bad cold, called her to come into her room for a visit.

Feeling some trepidation, Una entered and perched on the edge of the most uncomfortable chair in the room.  What would Susan say?  Shirley had always been the apple of her eye, her "little brown boy."  Despite her thirty-six years, Una felt uncomfortably like one of her nieces or nephews who had been caught in some wrongdoing.  

Her white hair neatly braided on the pillow, Susan looked keenly at Una.  "Which of you broke your engagement?" she asked.  Her tone was neither kind nor unkind, but merely curious.

Una faltered.  She had yet to tell anyone about her painful scene with Shirley, but she _couldn't lie to Susan.  "I did."_

"Why?"

"I—I didn't love him.  Not that way.  Not enough."  Una clenched her hands tightly at her sides.  What if this made Susan more ill?  

"Then you did the right thing," Susan said slowly.  "I wouldn't have that blessed boy marrying a woman who didn't love him enough."

Una let out the breath she hadn't realized that she was holding.  "I didn't want to hurt him, Susan, and I know I did."

"I'm sure you did," Susan said, with just a hint of sharpness.  "But better you hurt him a little now than a lot later.  Well, you can go now.  Una Meredith, you may not appreciate what you have a chance at, but at least you don't keep what you can't appreciate.  Don't worry"—she could see the concerned look on Una's face—"I won't tell anyone.  It's between the two of you, but I did want to know the rights of it.  Thank you for letting me know."

Una got out of the room as fast as her legs would take her.  "All things concerned," she said to herself, "that could have been much worse.  Bless Susan!  She's come the closest of anyone to understanding why I did what I did."


	27. The Wrong Color of Thread

**Chapter Twenty-Seven—The Wrong Color of Thread**

Una sat curled up in one of the big armchairs in the Redferns' living room, staring out at the soft snowfall and complaining about her situation to Valancy.  "I can't go on like this, hopping from place to place," she moaned.  "I'm tired of living with various relations, wearing whatever clothes I have packed in my trunk!  And I would feel _very odd living with any of the Blythes right now, but they comprise half my family.  And—"  Something snapped, and Una buried her head in a rather ugly striped pillow that Cousin Georgiana had made for Barney and Valancy.  "I just don't know what to do."_

"Don't cry, Miss Una," Cecy said, patting her on the shoulder.  "You can come share my room."

"Thank you, Cecy," Una said gravely from the depths of the pillow.  "But my problem is exactly that.  Everyone keeps offering to share with me, but I want my own room.  Somewhere without family members everywhere, feeling sorry for me.  But that will never happen."  A hint of self-pity crept into her voice.

"In that case, I won't feel sorry for you," Valancy said, not unkindly.  "But you need to become independent.  You're so used to living with your family that you can't imagine being on your own."

The tips of Una's ears—all that showed—looked rather affronted.  "I went to Europe by myself."

"But it was a gift.  _You yourself need to have some sort of goal in life, a time when you break away and go off on your own without family constraints."_

Una's eyes showed over the top of the pillow.  "What did you do?" she asked curiously.

"I left home, took a job in one of the most disreputable households in the town, and asked a man to marry me."

Una sat up.  "That sounds a mite drastic, in my opinion.  I don't think I'm quite ready for that."

Valancy smiled.  "Probably not.  Desperate times called for desperate measures."  The two women laughed.  "Besides, I thought I only had a year to live and that I should try to get the most out of it that I could."

"I don't think I want to ask anyone to marry me, but I suppose a job wouldn't be that bad of an idea," Una mused.  "Where would I start looking for one?"

"The newspaper," Valancy said.  "Or Barney might know of something.  We can ask him at supper."

"Perhaps I'll do that," Una mused.

***********

Two days later, Una approached the door of the Kenneth Ford household with fear and trepidation.  She had put off her visit to Rilla as long as possible, but it could no longer be delayed.

Her fears were allayed somewhat by Rilla's warm greeting and the horde of children who "all wanted to see Aunt Una right now and tell her _everything about the new baby".   After little Leslie Anne was properly admired and put down for her nap, the two women sat down in Rilla's sewing room for a visit._

"She's darling, Rilla," Una said sincerely.  "I declare she looks just like you, with the reddish curls all over her head."

"I never thought I'd be the mother of six children," Rilla laughed.  "Goodness knows, I've come a long way from when I had Jims in my care.  I remember wanting to just _shake him when he wouldn't stop crying."  She looked wryly at the pile of socks that needed darning.  "The problem with six children is that they produce an enormous amount of mending.  While I love children—at least my own—much more than in my salad days, I must confess that my love of mending has not increased in proportion to the size of my family."  She tossed Una a pair of dark blue stockings and a darning egg.  "If you could darn Trudy's good stockings, I'd be ever so grateful.  She was sledding in them and ran into a small tree—I think the tree had the worst of it, but the stockings came in a close second.  You can find a needle and thread in this workbasket, I think—at least, unless Cornelia Susan decided to give one of her dolls an emergency operation.  She says that she's going to be a doctor just like Grandpa Blythe.  Una, when you have children, be prepared for __anything.  I promise you, it will happen."_

"I don't think I plan on having children for a while," Una answered, keeping her eyes on Trudy's stocking.  She could see by the look in Rilla's eyes that Rilla was going to bring up the one subject that she didn't want to discuss.  "Speaking of childish peccadilloes, did I tell you what Cecy Redfern did the other day?"

"No, but it's no use trying to distract me," Rilla said firmly.  "Una, why did you and Shirley break off your engagement?"

"I don't think it's any of your business, to tell you the truth," Una said politely, but with equal firmness.

"He's my brother.  You're my friend.  Our families are inextricably linked, and yet you say it isn't my business."  Rilla's temper, inherited from her mother, was starting to show.

"We simply decided that it would not work out.  Can't you accept that?  You wouldn't want us to be unhappy together, and it seemed that we would end up that way if we got married."

Rilla looked penetratingly at her but appeared to be giving up the fight.  "If that's how you want it…"

"It is," Una said firmly, unaware that she was darning Trudy's socks with the wrong color of thread.

"To change the subject," Rilla said, "Ken had a letter from Walter yesterday.  He thinks that all of his paperwork muddles should be cleared up in the next few days.  He never was actually discharged from the army, so they're attempting to do that now with the smallest amount of red tape possible."

"That's good."

"Yes, he was worried for a while that he'd be considered a deserter.  But since he was a prisoner of war until after the Armistice and was presumed dead anyway, the government decided not to take his case that direction."  Rilla tossed her head and groaned.  "And I suppose that I'll be getting a new sister-in-law one of these days, now that Walter is getting his life put back together."

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Una asked sharply.

Rilla looked at her with the same penetrating look she had used before.  "Irene Howard…well, Irene North now."

"I thought he wasn't seeing her anymore.  He wrote to me a few months ago that he thought she was malicious."

"So he had _some sense, at least a while ago," Rilla muttered to herself before answering Una.  "I don't know.  She asked him to be her escort to a few parties and things when he first came here, but as you said, he didn't really care for her.  Then closer to Christmas, he didn't see anything of her at all.  But during this last month, he's squired her to all sorts of galas and parties all over Toronto.  We had words over it, and I'm not sure if he's speaking to me at the moment.  I don't see why Irene considers him such a feather in her cap—she's known around the city as a bit of a fortune-hunter, and goodness knows, Walter doesn't make all that much on his salary at the paper."_

"But he's noble and courageous.  That should count for something even if he didn't have a penny!" Una said vehemently.  

Rilla looked at her again.  "Una...may I ask you a question?"

Una immediately jumped to the defense.  "I don't want to discuss it.  My life and my feelings are my own business.  I already told you that."

"Una, why did you darn Trudy's blue stockings with black thread?"  

"For pity's sake," Una murmured.  "I _did do that!  I suppose I wasn't paying attention."_

"We've been friends for years, Una.  Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Una stood up, dumping stockings, basket, and all on the floor.  "Yes.  I do not need a husband.  I don't want anyone to tell me that I should or shouldn't marry anyone else.  Today I sent in a letter of application to the Hopetown Orphan Asylum, which needs a new matron.  I have decided that it is time for me to be out on my own.  I'm sorry about Trudy's stocking, Rilla, and I hope I haven't hurt your feelings by not wanting to share mine."

Rilla looked utterly flabbergasted.  "Well, the only advice I can give you then is to not clothe your orphans in yellowish-brown wincey," she said after a minute of silence.

Una's face softened.  "Thanks," she said softly.  "Rilla…if I knew myself what I felt, I might be more inclined to tell you."

"I know.  And Una?"

"Yes?"

"It's my brother's loss.  _Both my brothers' loss."_


	28. Una Learns to Dance

**Chapter Twenty-Eight—Una Learns to Dance**

If you were looking for a place to forget the troubles of your heart, Una decided, the wilds of Muskoka were that place.  Taking long snowshoe tramps with Valancy and Barney…skating across the frozen lakes…indulging in a childish snowball fight with Cecy…sitting in front of a crackling fire while Roaring Abel, the Redferns' friend, played his violin…the nights tucked up in a feather bed in the loft with Cecy rubbing her cold feet on yours unexpectedly…it was all wonderful.  She occasionally spared a thought to wonder if she would be accepted as the matron for the Hopetown Asylum, but other than that, she refused to think about the world outside of Mistawis.  

An intrusion came, however, in the form of an invitation to a dance held at one of the mansions on another island.  Valancy glared at the card in protest, as if the small, stiff piece of paper itself was to blame.  "I suppose we should go," she said.  "There aren't many people up here in the winter—it's more of a summer retreat—and we'll offend the Worthingtons if we don't go.  They're old friends of Barney's father."

Una felt a slight stirring of excitement in her, compounded with nervousness.  "I've never danced," she told a shocked Valancy.

"Never?  Even _I went to dancing school."_

"I'm a minister's daughter—it wasn't considered proper.  I went to the dances, but I'd just sit and visit with people or pull taffy."

Valancy laughed.  "I don't think this will be the taffy pulling sort of crowd.  The festivities will be slightly more fashionable than that!"

**********

A more fashionable party, Una thought after her first half hour of it, was considerably less enjoyable than the dances at the Four Winds Light that she remembered from her youth.  After shooing Barney and Valancy out on to the dance floor, she had wandered around with a glass of punch in hand, attempting to avoid anyone who looked like they might request her company as a dance partner.  

_"I can't dance.  I've never done it.  And even if I did__ know how, there's no one I know, and I wouldn't dance with someone I didn't know.  There's Barney, but he should dance with Valancy.  I wonder if I sneaked into the kitchen, if I could convince the maids to have a taffy pull"—_

"Una?" A hand touched her shoulder, and with shock, she turned to face Walter Blythe.  Utterly dumbfounded, she had nothing to say.

Walter looked at her oddly.  "How—where—who—what_ are you doing here?  The last I knew, you were in the Glen."_

Una hastily tried to regain some of her composure.  "I'm visiting Barney and Valancy Redfern," she explained.  "They're friends of mine.  I met them on the boat to Europe.  What brings _you here?"_

"Irene's cousin Adam is married to a Worthington.  She decided that coming up here for the house party would be a good way to celebrate—all the red tape is over and done with.  I've proved I exist, and, moreover, that I have a right to exist." 

"I thought you didn't care for Irene," Una said softly.  "That's what you wrote to me."

Walter shrugged, but pain lurked in his eyes.  "And I don't know if she particularly cares for me.  I'm somewhat of a novelty to her, I think."

"And what is she to you?" Una pressed, feeling somewhat forward.  But she _had to know._

"A way to forget."

Una decided not to pry further—the pain in his eyes was growing stronger.  But he took her hand light-heartedly and attempted to lead her to the dance floor.

"I can't dance."  Una's face flushed.  "I never learned."

"I can't dance particularly well either, now that you mention it.  But there are so many people out on the dance floor who can that we'll hardly be noticed."

Before Una could realize it, she was dancing in Walter's arms.  Once, she would have given anything to be there—in fact, even now, she realized just how deeply she cared for him, both as the boy she had known and the man she had rediscovered.  But so much had happened, and she was hopefully going to embark on a new life of her own, albeit one that at the moment looked very lonely.

They didn't talk as they circled the dance floor, but simply glided along.  Una was surprised how easy it was to dance, once you began.  She glanced at Walter, who seemed lost in a reverie—perhaps of years gone by?  Finally, the song ended and they stopped.

"There.  Now you can't say you can't dance," Walter said quietly.

"Thank you for dancing with me," Una replied.  At that point, she would have given almost anything to continue dancing with him for the rest of the evening, but that was merely a girlish wish, she knew.  How very odd indeed it was that they had both ended up at the same place—it certainly made one think about predestination.

             "I see Irene coming—I promised her the next one," Walter told her with a note of apology in his voice.  "Will I get another dance with you later?"

"I don't believe so," Una told him.  "We're only planning to stay for a little while longer, because of Cecy.  She's playing with some of the Worthington children, but Valancy didn't want her out too late."

"Then I'll dance with you at your wedding one of these days," Walter said.  "I promise."

"I accept, but I don't know wh—"

"Una Meredith! My word, I can't believe you're here, of all places.  You certainly have changed, haven't you?  But didn't your father go grey young as well?"  It was Irene, preceded by a cloud of perfume that threatened to choke Una.

Una, who knew perfectly well that her hair was the same black that it had always been, found an unholy pleasure in realizing that not all of Irene's hair was its natural color.  "Irene—it's been quite a while, hasn't it?"

"I didn't recognize you at first, but then someone explained to me who the woman that Walter was dancing with was."  This was said with a note of scorn, as if Irene considered herself the only woman who was allowed to dance with Walter.

"As I said, it has been quite a while.  But I really must be going."  Going where, she was not quite sure, but Una didn't trust herself to be completely civil in Irene's company.

"Of course," Irene smiled.  "So nice to see you again."

"Yes, indeed.  Goodbye, Irene.  Goodbye, Walter."  

"Goodbye, Una," Walter said somewhat absent-mindedly.  He still appeared to be in his reverie, even as Irene led him back out onto the dance floor.

Una slipped out onto the balcony.  It was a cold night, and she wasn't wearing her coat, but she stood there for several minutes, watching the soft snow fall.  A soft laugh escaped her.  "I never thought I'd ever learn to dance!  Especially not—not with Walter.  But those who dance must pay the Piper, as the saying goes, and I don't think I have any desire to be indebted to such a specter.  No, I've had my fun.  I'll be a working woman now."

**Author's Note:  Once again, thanks so much for your reviews!  Kudos to jenelin for catching the reference to "Fancy's Fool".  (In case anyone would like to know what it is, it's the mention of Stephen Barry in Chapter 18.  Tiger Girl, you'll get to see Una as the matron in the next chapter.  And to all of you who want to know who's going to be together romantically at the end of the story, just keep reading!  I have one more chapter beyond this one written—after that, I have one more and an epilogue to write.  However, real life is going to be interfering in the form of 17 credits at college and two jobs, so the ending may be slow in coming.**


	29. "The Birthday of my Life is Come"

**Chapter Twenty-nine—"The Birthday of my Life is Come"**

_(Extract from a letter written to Miss Una Meredith, Matron, Hopetown Orphan Asylum, Hopetown, Nova Scotia, from her sister, Mrs. Jem Blythe (nee Faith Meredith), Ingleside, Glen St. Mary's, P.E.I.)_

"May 4th, 1933 

"…Hopefully this letter will reach you in time for your birthday on the 10th…if not, know that our best wishes for the coming year are with you, as well as our love.  I hope to get this done in time to send it with Meredith to the post office, but that will most likely depend on a number of things beyond my control, such as laundry, visitors, and my children.  But I'm sure you've learned all about children in the last several months!

"It may amuse you to know that Meredith keeps pestering Jem and me that we should adopt 'a whole bunch of Aunt Una's orphans—all girls, because I want lots of sisters'.  I've tried to explain that our family is just the size that I prefer it, but she won't be pacified.  Please don't encourage her if she writes to you surreptitiously about it—between the five of us, Jem's parents, and Susan, the house is quite full as it is!

"Matt is peering over my shoulder and wants me to add that he wishes you a happy birthday and will you please write and tell him what happened to Katherine Gordon after you found her in the coal cellar looking for the 'chocolate flour'.  He scoffed at the idea of someone mistaking coal dust for flour, but I happened to notice him licking a little off of his hand the other day—I do not believe that he was overly impressed…

"…The book of poems by Christina Rossetti is from all of us here at Ingleside, with our love and hopes that your 37th year will be the best one so far.  Love always from your sister, Faith Blythe."

Una smiled as she lay the letter down on her large wooden desk.  Katherine Gordon was one of the few success stories that she had had since becoming the matron in mid-February.  A black-haired imp of eight, her Italian appearance did not seem to mesh well with her Scottish surname.  According to the records, she had been left at the orphanage at the tender age of four by a brusque man claiming to be her grandfather.  For the four remaining years of her sojourn at Hopetown, she had been the very soul of mischief and was considered to be the naughtiest of all sixty of the children unfortunate enough to reside there.

Una had suspected that many of Katherine's peccadilloes were due to her desire for attention and had, much to the disapproval of several of her subordinate staff members, installed her in charge of several of the younger children.  For the most part, the change had been miraculous.  It was true, there _had been incidents such as the coal cellar one, but everyone had been surprised at how well Katherine had been behaving._

"In fact," Una mused as she flipped through one of her files, "she might do very nicely for these people."  "These people" were Mr. Horace Lesley and his wife, a childless couple from Prince Edward Island who had written to her asking for a lively child, preferably with a good sense of humor.  Una was unsure of why they had specifically requested a lively child—most people preferring their orphans to be on the docile side—but she decided that if they wanted a lively child, she would be happy to oblige them by sending Katherine Gordon.

The few months that she had served as matron had been difficult ones, yet full of a certain satisfaction.  Many of the old staff had let her know in no uncertain terms how things were supposed to be run, but Una had kept her own counsel.  One of her first official acts had been to change the menu that was served week after week without variation—after the first week of it, she had begun to have regular nightmares about Aunt Martha's ditto.  This had cost her the cook and the cook's husband, a mousy sort of man who claimed that he was the asylum's handyman, although he never managed to fix anything properly.  A series of cooks had been engaged since—although none of them had managed to stay more than three weeks, the upside was that the menu was invariably different with each cook.  The present cook had been in residence for three and a half weeks, which Una considered to be a promising sign.

The other major battle that she had begun to fight had been in the matter of clothing.  There was, Una decided, no_ good reason for making the thirty-seven girls all wear the exact same brown and blue checked dress, which somehow managed to hang awkwardly on all types of figures and make all thirty-seven girls look as though they had neglected to wash their faces.  Since the budget would not stand for new dresses at the moment, however, Una had had to acknowledge a temporary setback.  She had consoled the girls and herself by allowing them to experiment with different hairstyles other than the two tight braids with no bangs that had been required by the previous matron.  After this edict, fluffy bobbed heads had sprung up all over the dining hall like an odd sort of flower garden._

A soft knock sounded at the door.  "Miss Meredith?  May I come in?" a quiet voice asked.

"Of course, Elma."  Una smiled at the young woman who entered.  There were days, Una thought, when Elma Madison was the only reason that she didn't pack up and go home.  A slight wisp of a thing consisting mostly of brown hair and big eyes, Elma had earned her B.A. from Redmond several years previously, but the thought of teaching at a large school had terrified her.  Although her parents had considered her to be wasting her time by working with orphans, she had applied to be the teacher for the younger children at the orphanage two years before Una's arrival.  Always cheerful and wanting to help, Elma was the bright spot in everyone's day, especially Una's.  Out of the five staff members, Elma was the only one to support Una's innovations and had even begun to suggest a few of her own.

"Happy birthday!  I just stopped by to tell you to avoid the classroom for a bit—the children are making you a surprise, and they'd hate for you to see it before it's finished, so I thought I'd tell you to stay away.  But make sure to act surprised anyway."

Una laughed.  "Sounds good.  I'll be the epitome of surprise."

"Oh, did someone give you this for your birthday?" Elma asked, picking up the Christina Rossetti book.  "I remember reading some of her poems back at Redmond for one of my literature classes."

"My sister and her family sent it as a present," Una told her.  "I'll have to read it in my spare time."

The corner of Elma's mouth twitched.  "Since you have so much of that…"

"I haven't read any of Rossetti's work that I recall.  Do you have any that you especially like?" Una asked, glad to be having a conversation that didn't involve orphans.

"There were several that I remember," Elma said, leafing through the book.  "Oh, where's that one I'm—oh, here it is.  And it's appropriate as well, since it's entitled 'A Birthday'."  She cleared her throat and began to read.

_"My heart is like a singing bird_

_Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;_

_ My heart is like an apple-tree_

_Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit,_

_My heart is like a rainbow shell_

_That paddles in a halcyon sea;_

_My heart is gladder than all these,_

_Because my love is come to me._

_"Raise me on a dais of silk and down;_

_Hang it with vair and purple dyes;_

_Carve it in doves and pomegranates,_

_And peacocks with a hundred eyes;_

_Work it in gold and silver grapes,_

_In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;_

_Because the birthday of my life_

_Is come, my love is come to me."_

_Oh, very __appropriate, Una thought to herself.  __Thirty-seven, and I have the fortune of hearing a poem by some woman whose love has come to her at long last.  There is something decidedly ironic about this._

Elma, realizing that perhaps she had chosen a poor selection, flushed with embarrassment.  "It's a lovely book.  I hope you find some poems you like in there…I really must be getting back to my classroom.  Make sure to act surprised!"

"I will!" Una answered, trying to look cheerful.

Elma had almost made it to the door when a look of frustration crossed her face.  "There was something else I had for you—oh, it was this telegram from Kingsport."  She handed the yellow piece of paper to Una.  "I hope it's not bad news, being that it's your birthday and all."

"It's from a friend of mine—almost family.  It's just a birthday greeting."

 "That's good.  I really must be getting back to my class."

After Elma left, Una looked at the paper in her hand once again.  _HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNA STOP PRESENT ARRIVING SOON STOP LOVE ALWAYS SHIRLEY STOP._

She smiled softly.  Shirley was a dear, and it was thoughtful of him to remember her; thoughtful, but characteristic.  After her first horrible week as matron, a week where she had cried herself to sleep every night, he had written a long letter to cheer her up.  If it had had a smidgen of romance in it, she knew that she would have thrown the job and all the reservations she had had about him overboard and fled to his side, just to leave Hopetown.  Perhaps Shirley had suspected as much and had not considered the use of sentiment to be what was needed; instead, his letter was filled with amusing anecdotes about his students.  Since then, she had received an occasional letter, but never one that could be construed as anything besides one family member writing to another.  The "love always" in his telegram was the most romantic phrase that she had heard from him since the night on Spofford Avenue.

Thinking of one Blythe brother happened to bring another to mind.  Una's eyes might have been slightly wistful at the memory of her dance with Walter, but she shook her head.  "It was beautiful.  Let's leave it that way," she said out loud to the pin on her blouse.  

_I wonder what Shirley's gift will be—I wouldn't put it past him to send me a shipment of caramels for the sole purpose of sticking my orphans' mouths together to give me peace and quiet!  Not that I'd mind a few caramels myself, the way the cooking is around here.  I should go see what Elma's class made for me…I hope it will not be too__ garish… _

**********

A large papier-mâché vase painted in various shades of green and blue adorned Una's desk that evening as she worked on the budget, courtesy of Elma's class of primary scholars.  More precious to her than the vase, however, were the hugs that the children had given her; children who, for most of their lives, had neither loved anyone nor been loved in return.  _And that's why I'm here, she thought to herself._

_Thirty-seven.__  That's not so old.  It just took me longer to find where I belonged than most other people.  But I'm at peace now.  I've found where I'm needed.  Where I want to be.  Where"—a knock sounded at the door._

"Yes?  Oh, it's you, Katherine.  Can I help you with something?"

The little black-haired girl grinned.  "Nope.  Not me.  You've got a visitor, Miss Meredith, and Nancy said that I could show him in 'cause I was good and didn't get in any trouble today.  And I didn't, 'cause it was your birthday.  Oh, and happy birthday, Miss Meredith!"

"Did the visitor give his name?" Una asked, trying to think of who it could be.  The minister, perhaps, to complain about the behavior of the older boys during church?  A prospective adoptive parent who worked in the fields all day, therefore having to come in the evening to see her?

"Dunno.  If he did, I didn't hear it, but he's some friend of yours, I guess."  Katherine stuck her head back around the door.  "You can come in now, mister.  I told her about you, so it's fine for you to come in."  She skipped out the door, happy to have been of service.

The visitor entered, and suddenly Una felt as though the last puzzle piece of her life had snapped into place.  They stood there silently for several seconds—or was it for several hours?  Una could not have said.  She was only conscious of the feelings bubbling over inside her that refused to come out in words.  But what if—what if this didn't mean what she thought it did?

Then he spoke, and any doubt that remained fell away.  His hands were filled with delicate pink blossoms, and his voice was filled with the joy of a thousand springtimes.

"Una, I've brought you the first mayflowers."  


	30. The First Mayflowers

**Chapter Thirty—The First Mayflowers**

There were so many things that Una wanted to say; so many questions that she wanted to ask.  But in the end, all she could say was, "Thank you, Walter.  They're lovely."

"I hoped that you'd like them.  I remember you said once that you loved Rainbow Valley best in spring, because of the mayflowers.  Since you couldn't be home this year, I thought that I'd bring the mayflowers to you."

"That—that was very thoughtful of you," Una stammered.  "But I didn't realize that you had been home lately.  The last I'd heard, you were in Toronto."

"I went home for a visit a few days ago," Walter said.

"Faith never mentioned it in the letter she sent me."

"I probably arrived after she sent it.  Today's the tenth, and I arrived in the Glen on the seventh."

"Then you were hardly home at all," Una said.  She looked at him, puzzled.  Something was different about him, but she couldn't decide exactly what it was.

"Long enough for what I needed to do, which was apologize to my family for being such a fool since I was reunited with them," Walter said.  "That and some other matters of business."

It was his eyes that were different, Una realized.  The bitterness that had been there ever since she had seen him that night at Courcelette was gone, and in its place was a sense of peace.

"They're lovely.  The flowers, I mean.  Are they truly the first ones?" Una asked, realizing that she had been staring dumbly at Walter long after he had finished talking.

"Yes.  I'm glad you like them." 

"I even have a vase that I can use…the younger children made it for me.  Of course, it's papier-mâché, so it won't hold water, but I could always put this glass in it, wouldn't you think?"  Her hands were shaking so much that she could barely place the filled glass inside the vase without spilling it.  Calm down, Una.  You're reading too much into this.

Walter came and stood behind her and began to place the flowers in the vase.  "Lovely," he whispered, no louder than a breath.  "Utterly, completely lovely."

"What did you say?  I couldn't hear you," Una said, half turning towards him.  She was very conscious of him, merely inches away from her—his black hair, flecked with silver; his face, still the face of a dreamer even after all that he'd been through; his eyes, eyes that were looking at her, looking at her like no one ever had before.

"I said," Walter said quietly, placing one of the mayflowers in her hair, "utterly, completely lovely.  Oh, Una…"

And then he kissed her.  Not a brotherly kiss like he had given her before going off to war, not a kiss like a hurricane like the one they had shared aboard the ship home, but a long, deep kiss that filled not only all the empty crevices of her soul, but all the parts that she had thought were already filled as well.

"I love you," Walter murmured into her hair.  "I've loved you for quite a while now, but I thought that I'd take this opportunity to mention it."

"I'm glad you did," Una said, pulling back enough that she could look him directly in the eyes.  "The odd bit is—I love you, too."

*********

"I never dreamed that I could feel like this," Una whispered a bit later.

Walter laughed—a real laugh, such as she hadn't heard from him in years.  "Oh, I dreamed of it—but my dreams weren't close enough.  Until a few days ago, I didn't think that they'd ever be anything but dreams."

"What changed things?"

"Well, I discovered that you were no longer engaged."

"You didn't know?" Una asked, surprised.

"No.  I think that everyone assumed that I already knew, so no one bothered to tell me, and then it was something that just didn't come up in conversation.  You might have mentioned it when I saw you in Muskoka, you know."  Walter sat on the edge of her desk, his legs swinging.

Una, whose legs were feeling rather shaky after her kiss, pulled her desk chair over by Walter and looked up at him with eyes that shone like stars.  Surely she wasn't dreaming—she wasn't going to wake up and realize that this moment had never happened.  "I suppose, like everyone else, I assumed that you knew.  And I did try to say something at the end about that if you wanted to dance with me at my wedding you'd have to wait a while."

"True.  Which caused me to be greatly puzzled when Rilla and Ken mentioned that you had taken this position at Hopetown, since I expected to receive a wedding invitation at any point.  I asked Rilla when your wedding was supposed to be, and she looked at me oddly and said that if I didn't know, that I should ask the parties concerned."  He smiled rather ruefully.  "We'd had some words, I suppose you'd say, about the amount of time I was spending with Irene.  Still, I think that she could have been a bit kinder to me."

"Did you care for Irene?"  The question spilled out before Una could take it back.  If the answer was "yes"…

Walter looked at her.  "How could I?  She wasn't you."

"Then why—"  Una decided not to pursue the matter.  Irene had always been rather conniving, and she doubted that Walter had been aware of how close he and Irene had seemed.  "How did you find out that I wasn't engaged any longer?"

"I kept wondering when your wedding was going to be—I figured that once it happened, I could deal with my feelings and move on, but until then, it was eating me up inside.  So I called Shirley last week and in the midst of our conversation, attempted to casually ask when the wedding was.  I caught him rather off guard, I think.

"'You didn't know?' he asked.  'The engagement's off—has been since Christmas.'

"You could have knocked me over with a feather at that point.  For months, I had assumed that the two of you were happily engaged.  All I could ask was 'Why?'

"'Why do you want to know?' Shirley asked.  I thought that it seemed a bit presumptuous to ask, but I supposed that it was a bit presumptuous of me to ask about something that personal as well.  And then I told him what I'd never told anyone, that I loved you and that I thought that I'd loved you more or less ever since you showed up at Courcelette that stormy night last autumn.

"And then he told me that he thought that you loved me.  Not that you'd said so, but that he could still tell.  Then you really could have knocked me down with that feather."  Walter looked at Una.  A pensive look was on her face.

"So that's what the surprise present was that he sent me the telegram about—you!" Una exclaimed.  Then, sighing, she murmured, "I hope—I hope that it didn't hurt too much for him to say that.  I don't love him—I love you and have always loved you—but I think I hurt him badly."

"He doesn't hold a grudge; he just wants you to be happy.  He told me so."

"I hope that he's happy as well.  Walter?"

"Yes, Una?"

"Since you said that you loved me ever since last fall, does that mean that you weren't kissing Faith that night on the ship?"

Walter laughed.  "I was not kissing Faith."

"I'm glad to hear it.  Now I can enjoy the memory without thinking that it was truly for my sister."  The memory of the kiss had long been a sore spot in Una's heart, but no longer.

"Even when I told you about Faith, it didn't mean that I still loved her.  The hurt was still there, but I knew that the sweetest, most beautiful woman in Canada—or anyone else—was in that cabin with me," Walter said.

A knock came at the door.  "Come in," Una called, trying to remove the flower from her hair while simultaneously patting her hair down.

Elma Madison's head popped around the doorframe.  "Miss Meredith?  There's a fight between two of the girls in Room 9."  Her big eyes grew even larger as she realized that there was a visitor in the room—a male visitor, who was sitting on top of Miss Meredith's desk.  "I'm so sorry…did I interrupt something?"  It was plain that Elma didn't quite know where to place Walter—was he a prospective parent?  If so, why was he sitting on the desk?

Una shook her head.  "It's all right, Elma.  I'll be up in a minute.  This is a dear—a dear friend of mine, Walter Blythe.  He came to wish me a happy birthday.  Walter, this is Miss Elma Madison, our teacher for the younger children."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Madison," Walter said, standing up.

"And yours, sir," Elma said shyly.  As Una followed her out of the room, Elma whispered, "Who is he?"

Una smiled dreamily.  "'The birthday of my life has come….'"

*******

Privacy, Una decided, was impossible to come by in an orphanage.  All that next day, she never had a chance to talk to Walter alone.  Finally, she cornered Elma in her office.

"I'm going to disappear for a while," she whispered.  "Can you keep the place from burning down while I'm gone?"

Elma smiled at her superior.  "Certainly."  She paused for a moment, as if afraid of stepping over her boundaries.  "We aren't going to lose you, are we, Miss Meredith?  You've hardly been here at all, and now it looks as if you might want your own home."  

Una, who had stayed up most of the night trying to decide that very thing, shook her head.  "I'm not planning on leaving."

Elma beamed.  "I knew it!  And Mr. Blythe—why, we'll finally have someone who can help with the older boys."

"It would be nice," Una said noncommittally.  I can't leave this place, she thought to herself.  It's become a part of me.  But—but what if Walter doesn't want to?

She tried to approach the subject in a calm, matter-of-fact fashion when the two of them went on a ramble through the spring woods.  Mindful of her good dress (worn in hopes of the approving smile she received), Una sat on a large grey stone, plaiting wildflowers in a chain while Walter lay at her feet, gazing up at her with the eyes of a man who has finally found his heart's desire.

"So how soon can we be married?" he asked her.  "Does two weeks from today sound good?  That would give us enough time to get whatever frills and furbelows you need."

Una let her mind wander into the realm of "frills and furbelows" for a minute before turning her attention to the answer she knew she must give.  "I've wanted to talk to you about that," she said nervously.  "I love you—you know that.  But I don't think that we should be married quite yet.  We know each other—we grew up together.  But the Walter and Una that we are now are so different from the Walter and Una of Rainbow Valley days that I think that we should be better acquainted first."

Walter sighed impatiently.  "I suppose you're right," he said.  "I don't want to wait—I feel like I've been waiting my entire life for you."

"I know.  But I don't think that we're ready yet.  You're still dealing with a lot of issues in your life, and I have an orphanage to run.  Hopetown has become very important to me, and I can't see leaving it."

Walter thought for a while before nodding slowly.  "I hadn't thought about the orphanage.  I think I'd like to help you there once we're married, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle it.  I'm trying to escape from my memories of the War and afterwards, but it's a slow, painful process.  I've been writing to Rev. Blake—Philip's father—these last few months.  He's been helping me understand that God didn't turn His back on me any more than my family did—I turned my back on Him."  He sat up and took Una's hand in his.  "I love you, Una Meredith.  And we will marry—I'm sure of it."

Una squeezed his hand as hard as she could before answering.  "I love you, Walter Blythe.  And I fully intend to marry you before the year is out, even though I don't know if I'd call what you've said a proposal."  She smiled before continuing.  "We've both 'kept faith' a long time—and in a little while longer, we'll have our reward!"

Walter placed the completed chain of wildflowers in her hair, and they walked through the woods hand in hand towards the orphanage.  When they reached the edge of the woods, Una turned back for a minute.

"I thought I heard music," she said.  "Does the Piper pipe here as well?"

"I don't care if he does," Walter told her.  "He's had me in his thrall long enough—I'll no longer be haunted by shadows."  He bent and kissed her, and the joy of the present finally wiped away the cobwebs of the past for both of them.

**Author's Note:  Many thanks to all my reviewers…it's nice to know that you're enjoying my story.  There's an epilogue to follow, which hopefully should be done within the next few weeks.**


	31. Epilogue: But Love Remains

**Epilogue—"But Love Remains"**

(Extract from a letter written to Mr. and Mrs. Owen Ford, Berlin, Germany, by Mrs. Dr. Gilbert Blythe (nee Anne Shirley), Ingleside, Glen St. Mary, P.E.I., Canada)

August 28, 1933

…Walter and Una's wedding was today here at Ingleside—a very quiet wedding, with only family members (and Susan, of course!) in attendance.  Carl gave his sister away, and Jerry performed the ceremony.  Una wore her mother's wedding dress with a pin Walter had given her as her only ornament.  I remember Miss Cornelia saying she was "not pretty, but sweet," but today she was more than pretty.  She reminded me of the way you looked at your wedding, Leslie—the beauty of a woman who's waited for a long time for love to come.

Walter seems to finally have come to terms with those years that he was separated from us.  There's still a distance between him and the rest of the family in many ways, but now it's more a distance due to the time that we've been apart than for any other reason.  Both Gilbert and I are pleased that he and Una decided to marry—I think she's the best thing that ever could have happened to him…

…I hope you'll be able to return home soon once Owen finishes doing his research for his next book.  I don't like what I read about Germany's new Chancellor at all—complete dictatorial power is never good for an individual to have.  I find myself thinking back to the years before the War, and how things that seemed trivial then became monumental thereafter.  I know that the League of Nations has things under control now, but with this shadowy future before us, who knows what will happen in the next ten years?

But then I look at Walter and Una, at Rilla and Ken and all the others, at the grandchildren, at my dear Gilbert.  Governments rise, governments fall.  There are times of war, times of peace, and times when you hardly know which is which.  But love remains a constant throughout, through good times and bad.  And so, as I heard my son whisper to his new wife this afternoon, we "keep faith".


End file.
